Bittersweet and Strange
by nicnac918
Summary: Betty had been in Ooo for a few months with no memory of how she'd ended up a thousand years into the future, when her friend Princess Bubblegum was kidnapped by the Ice King. Betty goes to save her, but ends up becoming the Ice King's captive. But the more time she spends with him the more she becomes convinced that there's more there than meets the eye. Beauty and the Beast!AU
1. Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a powerful king who was proud and arrogant and whose heart was said to be as frozen as the lands he ruled over. One night, when the was howling fiercely and the hail was falling from the sky like daggers, an old beggar woman presented herself before the king and asked for shelter, just until the storm passed. The king was repulsed by her ancient and haggard appearance and turned her away. The old woman warned him not to be fooled by the outward seeming of things for, just as her old and clever eyes had seen past the imposing man on his imposing throne in his imposing castle to the goodness buried deep within him, so too might she be more than she first appeared. But the king scorned the old woman again, mocking her as too simple to know where she wasn't wanted. Twice refused, the old woman cast off her disguise and revealed herself to be a beautiful and powerful enchantress, an elemental of ice and snow. The king fell to his knees before her and pled for forgiveness, but her wrath, once drawn, was not so easily swayed. She laid a curse on his gold and ruby-encrusted crown, the very symbol of his pride and arrogance, that all he had seen her to be, so would he become, until the day he was able to thaw his frozen heart and learn to love another, and that other was able to look past his outward façade and see the goodness within him the curse had left intact, and come to love him in return. But that's a different story.

Many centuries later, there was an intelligent and well-spoken man by the name of Simon Petrikov, whose good heart was readily apparent to all who met him. Simon was a scholar and a collector of antiques and rare artifacts. It was on a singularly pleasant afternoon when Simon was feeling in particularly high spirits and wandering through a town in Northern Scandinavia searching for more pieces to add to his collection, that he met a dock worker who had found a beautiful and old gold crown encrusted with rubies. Simon bought the crown from the dock worker for a pittance – Simon would have gladly paid a fair price for the item, and indeed did try to do so, but the dock worker was eager to rid himself of the thing and insisted that he was doing Simon no favors by giving it to him. Then, perhaps because the story of the frozen king had been long since resolved and resigned to myth and legend and mostly forgotten, or perhaps because while Simon was interested in the occult, he believed himself above such silly superstitions, or perhaps merely because it was a singularly pleasant afternoon and he was in particularly high spirits, Simon indulged in a fanciful whim and placed the crown on his head. This was a mistake. Chaos ensued, and in time so did a great many troubles for Simon, and eventually, though by no particular doing of Simon's own, so did a great many troubles for the world as a whole. But that too is a different story.

Our story begins with a woman who happened to be in that very same Northern Scandinavian town on that very same day on her own business. In the chaos, no one noticed when she was blasted by the magic Simon was shooting indiscriminately into the crowd and the ground and the air and was frozen into a solid block of ice. Nor did they notice when that block of ice encasing her fell into the sea, nor when the wind and the waves carried the ice further up into the frozen North, where it would stay for a very, very long time. Our story begins one millennium after that fateful day, and only a few months after a freshly-thawed Betty Grof awoke to find herself washed up on the shore of the strange and wondrous land of Ooo.


	2. Wherein a Princess is Captured

AN: The full chapter title is "Wherein a Princess is Captured and a Deal is Struck" or, alternatively "Wherein Betty Reads a Book"

* * *

"Miss Betty, do you have any idea where Finn and Jake are?"

Peppermint Butler sounded more than a little on edge, so Betty carefully placed her finger between the pages of her book to save her spot and closed it, so she could grant him her full attention. Though she did hope whatever it was wouldn't take too long. There was so much in the world that had changed in the past thousand years while she had… well, Betty wasn't really sure where she'd been, exactly, or how she ended up here. She remembered getting on the plane for her trip to Norway – or had it been Sweden? – but after that things were hazy or completely blank until the moment she'd found herself lying on a beach being gently nosed awake by Lady Rainicorn. But regardless of how it had happened, Betty was here now and she had a lot to catch up on and a lot to learn about the way this world worked. Too much not to take the utmost advantage of any quiet moments that presented themselves, like this one had been before the appearance of Peppermint Butler.

"They left to go on a dungeon crawl about a week ago, Finn said they'd come by for a visit once they got back, and they haven't yet, so I assume they aren't. Back, that is," Betty said. "Why, what's up, Pepper? You look like you wish you had hair so you could be tearing it out."

"A week ago? Shouldn't they be back by now?" Peppermint Butler asked, completely ignoring Betty's question.

Betty shrugged. "Jake mentioned that he thought they might be awhile." In fact, he had told Betty privately that while the sudden and mysterious appearance of another human had distracted him, Finn was still pretty upset over his break-up with his ex, Flame Princess – a break-up so spectacular it had apparently resulted in the, temporary, destruction of an entire kingdom and, despite a small sense of morbid curiosity, Betty couldn't say she was sorry to have missed it. Jake, however, was hopeful that taking Finn out to hunt for treasure and fight evil-doers might help clear his head, and Finn's head, it seemed, needed a lot of clearing.

"Well, that's just great; now what am I supposed to do?" Peppermint Butler said, scowling.

"That depends on what's going on," Betty said, unable to help further as Peppermint Butler had yet to actually tell her anything.

"Princess Bubblegum has been kidnapped" – Betty got half out of her chair in alarm – "by the Ice King." And then she sat right back down again.

Betty had yet to have the extremely dubious pleasure of meeting the Ice King, but she'd heard plenty about him from Finn and Jake, who were always willing to complain about their roommate. Only a temporary one, they assured her, just until his aforementioned destroyed kingdom could be rebuilt by his penguin, an effort that had apparently caused another catastrophic event – this one involving 'snow-a constrictors' – that Betty had happily missed out on, that time due to being laid up in the hospital while she recovered from… whatever it was that had happened to her to result in her washing up on the shores of Ooo. The two boys, as well as Princess Bubblegum on occasion, had thrown a lot of words around to describe the Ice King, like "bad guy" and "evil" and "nefarious" and "no good, dirty, stinking, rotten, total donk," but the impression that Betty had gotten from their stories was of an infantile and obnoxious jerk, but not one that was in any way all that dangerous. Honestly, the penguin sounded more dangerous than Ice King.

"So have the Banana Guard go pick her up at the Treehouse. And soon too; didn't she have that thing later today?" Betty said, opening her book back up.

"If by 'that thing' you mean an incredibly important royal event that could cause a diplomatic incident if the princess were to fail to attend," Peppermint Butler said. Who knew he could do shrill? "I don't think you appreciate the full gravity of the situation. The Ice King is no longer just some powerless old man squatting in Finn and Jake's house. He has his crown back, his magic back, and his kingdom back. He's far too much for the Banana Guards to handle."

"So you go rescue her," Betty said.

"Me? What makes you think I'm capable of something like that?" Peppermint Butler said, his tone incredulous with just the right touch of flustered. Betty stared at him, narrow-eyed. He stared blandly back.

Finally Betty sighed and placed her bookmark in her book before sticking them both in her jacket pocket. So much for a quiet moment. "Fine, I'll go get her. The Ice King's new palace would be the mountain made of solid ice up to the north, right?"

" _You're_ going to rescue the princess? But you aren't a hero or a knight or a magic user or –"

"Or anything like that, no," Betty agreed. "But I am a fully grown adult woman and Finn said he's been dealing with the Ice King since he was a kid. If a twelve year old boy can do it, I should be able to manage."

"I didn't mean to imply you're incapable, but you do lack experience in these matters. Besides," he added in a tone that had Betty suspecting this was the real reason he didn't want her going, "the princess will have my buns if I let you try to rescue her and you get captured instead."

"You aren't _letting_ me do anything, grown woman, remember?" Betty said. "And anyway, Finn and Jake aren't around to save her, the Banana Guard can't do it, you won't do it, but somebody still has to do it, so I'm volunteering. I owe Princess Bubblegum for making sure I was taken care of after Lady found me and for letting me stay here and for helping me to adjust to this time period, not to mention she's my friend. And if the Ice King gives me any trouble, I'll just knock his crown off his head, problem solved."

Peppermint Butler still looked a bit doubtful, but after a moment he nodded. "Alright, but when this goes wrong it's on your head, man, not mine."

"Duly noted," Betty said.

"And you'll have to borrow The Morrow so you can get to the Ice Kingdom and back in time for the royal event."

Betty crinkled her nose in distaste – she didn't much care for flying and she got the feeling that The Morrow didn't much care for her – but she didn't argue. She doubted it would be a fun trip, but at least The Morrow was better and faster than walking.

* * *

"I should have walked," Betty said to herself as she struggled not to blow chunks all over the, presumably new, flooring. That would be extremely rude, even if the Ice King was a jerk and a perpetual kidnapper; cleaning up vomit was not a pleasant task. Once she was certain the contents of her stomach were going to stay in her stomach, she looked over at The Morrow and gave her a baleful glare. "You couldn't have made the ride a little smoother? Or slower? I am trying to save Princess Bubblegum here, and I know you like her at least."

The Morrow swiveled her head to the side so she could stare at Betty with one great yellow eye. After a minute The Morrow seemed to feel she'd made her point, then, with a supremely disinterested air, she turned away and began preening her feathers, focusing especially on the spot where Betty had been sitting.

"Stupid bird," Betty muttered quietly. But not quietly enough, it seemed because The Morrow gave an indignant little screech – not an _exceedingly_ loud one, but still louder than Betty would have liked, since this was ideally supposed to be a stealth mission – and flew back out the window. Hopefully she hadn't gone too far, though so long as The Morrow remained within earshot, Princess Bubblegum should be able to call her back pretty fast, once Betty had saved PB and they were ready to make their escape.

Betty surveyed the room, hoping to find some sort of clue as to the location of the dungeon or holding cells or wherever it was that Princess Bubblegum was being kept, but was instead confronted with the sight of a penguin staring at her from the doorway. "Oh. Um, hello," Betty said, hoping that if she sounded casual enough, the penguin wouldn't kick up a fuss about her breaking into the Ice King's castle. If it could even be called breaking into, given that the window she'd entered from had been wide open, and was large enough that Betty was fairly certain it was actually intended as a point of entrance and egress for Ooo's flying denizens. "Are you Gunter, by chance?" The penguin nodded. "Nice to meet you Gunter, I'm Betty; I'm a friend of Princess Bubblegum. I heard she'd come over here to stay with the Ice King for a while, so I thought I'd stop by and visit."

"Wenk wenk," Gunter said. And while Betty couldn't understand whatever penguin language Gunter was speaking – she wasn't even entirely sure that there was a complex penguin language to understand, for all that Gunter seemed to understand her – it was pretty clear that he was highly suspicious of her story.

"Really," Betty insisted. "I'm just here for a social visit to see how Princess Bubblegum is settling in."

"Wenk," said Gunter flatly, obviously not believing a word of it.

Betty huffed in annoyance. "I'll have you know I am a very good liar when I want to be; I'm just better at telling the truth. Besides, that story would have tricked the Ice King." Betty had been prepared to possibly run into Gunter and for him to be more dangerous than the Ice King, but not smarter too.

"Wenkwenk," Gunter said ambivalently, then turned around and walked off. After a moment of considering the options, Betty decided to follow after him. The way she saw it, there were two likely possibilities: either Gunter had decided, for whatever reason, to help her and was even now leading her to where Princess Bubblegum was being held, or he had decided to rat her out to the Ice King and was heading to find his master. Betty would have preferred to avoid a confrontation with the Ice King if at all possible, but if Gunter had decided to give her up then it was basically inevitable now anyway, so might as well go to him first and hopefully retain some small measure of the element of surprise to give herself a good opportunity to knock his crown off and then demand he tell her where he was keeping Princess Bubblegum. It maybe wasn't the best plan, but it was better than wandering about the castle and likely getting thoroughly lost.

But it appeared that luck, or rather, Gunter was on Betty's side, because he led her down a few hallways and to a room with a giant cell along one wall, and inside it was Princess Bubblegum. "Betty? What the junk; what are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you," Betty answered. She left the _obviously_ unvoiced, though she thought her tone made that part clear.

"Well, yeah," Princess Bubblegum agreed. "But why you? Normally this is the kind of thing I have Finn and Jake do for me. Or maybe Marceline. She and the Ice King have a weird sort of rapport; I don't really get it. Maybe it's because they're both a little nutso." Princess Bubblegum quickly and briefly clapped her hand over her mouth, going wide-eyed. "Oh my Glob, don't tell her I said that. She'll kick my buns into next week and probably still be mad."

"I haven't even met Marceline yet, so your secret is safe with me," Betty assured her as she began searching the room for the key to the cell. From what she'd heard about him, the Ice King seemed like the type to keep it somewhere obvious and near-by.

"Good. We've been kind of getting along lately, and I don't want to start fighting again," Princess Bubblegum said. "Anyway, you still haven't told me why you're here."

"To rescue you," Betty repeated. Princess Bubblegum made a moue of displeasure, so Betty elaborated. "I don't know if Peppermint Butler tried to get in touch with Marceline or not, but Finn and Jake are still out on their dungeon crawl. They weren't available, and so I volunteered instead." Betty put her hands on her hips and frowned. "Do you have any idea where the key to this cell is?"

"Looking for this?" Betty whipped around, and behind her was a man who had to be the Ice King. He was holding his blue robe up to his waist so he could reach down inside his underwear – really just a bunch of dirty cloth bandages wound around and crisscrossed back and forth over his privates – and pull out a heavy looking key made of ice. That was disgusting.

In spite of the fact that Betty really didn't want to touch the key now, she lunged for it, only for the Ice King to float a good six feet up in the air, so it was well out of her grasp. Glob-darnit, Ice King could fly? Had someone told her that? Thinking about it, she thought that maybe someone had mentioned it, and she had forgotten about it. That was going to make it almost impossible to get the key, or to knock the crown off his head. She could maybe try to get Princess Bubblegum to distract the Ice King while Betty threw something at the crown, but, while Betty was in good shape and considered herself decently athletic, she really couldn't aim for beans. So now what?

"Why hello, princess; I don't think we've met before. I'm the Ice King," he said, with a waggle of his eyebrows that was probably meant to be provocative, but mostly just looked silly.

"I'm not a princess," Betty corrected, though with the sheer number of princesses that seemed to be running around all over the place, his confusion was probably understandable. "I'm Betty Grof. I'm a friend of Princess Bubblegum and I just stopped by so the two of could visit. You know, have some tea and chat a bit about how she's settling in here."

"That's right," Princess Bubblegum said, taking Betty's cue. "You're welcome to join us, Ice King."

"Really? No one's ever invited me to hang out with them before. You ladies really want me to join you?" Ice King asked, and he sounded so genuinely thrilled about the prospect that Betty almost felt bad for lying to him.

"Yes, really." Almost.

"Wenkwenk wenk wenk," said Gunter, who had apparently been standing in the corner watching the proceedings this whole time.

Ice King turned an accusatory glare on Betty. "Is this true?"

"Um… no?" Betty hazarded.

"It is true! You don't want to hang with me at all, you just want to steal my princess." The Ice King floated another foot higher in the air, his expression going furious and foreboding as magic and ice began to gather around his hands. "I'll show you what I do to princess stealers!" And for the first time, Betty felt deeply and instinctually frightened.

Betty was, or had been, a researcher by trade, and it was a job that her nature was suited for – thoughtful, methodical, and thorough. At least, that's how she was the vast majority of the time. But sometimes there would come a moment where Betty would find herself wanting to behave almost impetuously, an occasional desire to leap without looking first. Her father had always said that that desire represented the spark that separated the good and even great minds from the truly brilliant. Her mother, meanwhile, had insisted that Betty had, hidden deep within her, a bit of an adventurer's spirit, and that her rare impulsiveness was that spirit peeking through. And then there had been Betty's great aunt, who had had an unfortunate tendency of cackling and who scared Betty terribly when she was younger and who Betty had missed just as terribly once she was gone, who said it was a touch of insanity. "Just a touch, mind you, not enough to be getting worried about, just enough to keep things from getting boring. It runs in the family, you know." Betty was starting to feel like Great Aunt Imogene must have had the right of it after all, because what possible explanation other than a touch of insanity could there be for the way Betty suddenly found herself saying, "Take me instead."

"What?" said Ice King and Princess Bubblegum at almost the exact same time, though Bubblegum sounded somewhere between indignant and incredulous, whereas the Ice King, who had drifted back down a bit and returned to a more relaxed expression, just sounded confused.

"Betty, you can't trade yourself for me," Princess Bubblegum objected.

"Watch me," Betty said. She was getting a little tired of people telling her what she could and couldn't do today. "Look Princess, I might not know much about politics, especially about the ones here in Ooo, but I do know it's a lot more important to keep you out of that cell than it is to keep me out of it."

"You're not less important than me," Princess Bubblegum said.

"I didn't say that I was." Just that Princess Bubblegum's _freedom_ was more important. There were a lot of things that a ruler of a country needed to do that she couldn't while being held captive, not to mention that thing that Pepper had gotten all shrill about, but if Ice King were willing to keep Betty supplied with books and writing materials, she could still accomplish a great deal of what she wanted to do right now from inside his holding cell. Come to think of it, the Ice Kingdom was probably a much more peaceful place to get work done than the Candy Kingdom anyway.

"Wait a second there, Princess Betty; who says I want to trade?" Ice King objected. "Sure you seem like a pretty stellar lady, top-tier princess material for sure. But Bubblegum is my favorite princess."

"Not Princess Betty, just Betty," she reminded him. "And Princess Bubblegum has always _been_ your favorite, but how do you know you won't like me better? Besides, isn't she a little young for you?" Of course, Betty felt like she was a little young for Ice King too, presuming one didn't count the thousand years when she had been… wherever, but she was older than PB at least.

"What're you talking about? Bubblegum is old as butts," Ice King said.

Betty turned to Princess Bubblegum with raised brows and she gave an awkward little cough. "Technically that's sort of true. My apparent physical age is primarily determined by my levels of biomass, not how many years I've been alive."

"I see," Betty said. "Well, you still don't know that you won't like me better."

Ice King appeared to consider that for a second. "I know; I'll just keep you both here while I take some time to get to know you better, and then I can decide which one of you I want to marry," said Ice King, and Betty had to admit it was a good point. Ethically repugnant, but that aside it was hard to fault the logic of his approach.

"But what about, what about…" Betty cast about for some other objection she could use. "What about when Finn and Jake get here?" she asked triumphantly.

"What about Finn and Jake?" Ice King said.

"They're going to find out eventually that you've kidnapped the two of us. And then they'll come rescue us and you'll be alone all over again. _But_ , if you agree to let Princess Bubblegum go right now, then I promise that when they do show up, I won't let them rescue me," she said.

"Betty, what are you doing?" Princess Bubblegum hissed.

"Rescuing you," Betty told her, for the third time. "Now be quiet and trust me."

The Ice King eyed the two of them whispering to each other suspiciously. "Wait a minute. You're just agreeing to that because as soon as I let Princess Bubblegum go, you're going to have her turn around and free you too, so you won't need Finn and Jake to do it."

Huh. Betty honestly hadn't expected him to catch on to that loophole. "Fine, then I promise that I won't let anyone rescue me." Which still left her the option of escaping on her own. "Now do we have a deal?" she said, extending her hand up to the Ice King.

He dithered for a minute or so, looking back and forth between her and Bubblegum and muttering to himself. Finally Betty let out a heavily annoyed sigh. "Look if you aren't interested, then I really should get going. I have lots of other things I could be doing today," she said, starting to bring her hand down.

"Wait, no, deal!" Ice King said, darting down and taking her hand. He shook it once, then everything suddenly went dark.

* * *

When Betty woke up, she was in the same cell that Princess Bubblegum had been in earlier, surrounded by chunks of ice and lightly covered in frost, and the room was empty. So much for her idea of escaping as soon as Ice King opened the cell door to let Princess Bubblegum out, then.

Betty got up and brushed the ice off herself. Not seeing any sort of cot or chair in her cell, she sat down on the floor with her back against the wall. Then she pulled her book out of her pocket and, happy to see it wasn't all that worse for the wear after having been frozen, picked up right where she had left off.


	3. Wherein Betty and IK Reach an Agreement

Only a few hours into her captivity, Betty made an important discovery: so long as it didn't involve her leaving her cell, the Ice King was willing to fill pretty much any request she made. When the Ice King first reappeared after Betty woke up, she demanded that he let her out to use the restroom, in part because she thought it might create a good opportunity for her to escape, and in part because she kind of did have to go. But instead of letting her out, the Ice King used his magic to create a closed off area inside her cell that, when she looked inside, was furnished up like a normal, if small, restroom. She cautiously tried flushing the toilet, certain that no matter how convincing it looked, it couldn't possibly work, since as far as she knew the Ice King's magic could only create ice or snow and she didn't see how plumbing with pipes made of ice could possibly function. But function it did. The water didn't get any warmer than slightly tepid, and there wasn't any soap or toilet paper or shampoo in the shower stall, but other than that it appeared to be a fully functioning restroom. When Betty emerged Ice King looked incredibly pleased with himself, which was fair she thought; it _was_ pretty impressive. He asked her if there was anything else she needed and she pointed out the lack of amenities, which he then immediately went to fetch for her, and he brought a couple of towels and a hand towel as well.

After that, Betty tried asking for other things, hesitantly at first, then with more conviction as the Ice King continued to be quite happy to make her things out of ice or to fetch them or have the penguins fetch them for her. By the time two weeks had passed, in addition to her bathroom, she had a bed and bedside table, a wardrobe full of cold weather clothes, a desk full of pens and paper and other assorted office supplies, a cabinet full of things to snack on between the official meals she was brought – there wasn't really room for a full kitchen, unfortunately – a cozy chair with a reading lamp, a bookshelf full of books that were more or less what she wanted – she had only known a few specific titles, so instead she had given the Ice King a general idea of what she was looking for and left it up to him to select them, then, when that turned out probably about as well as she should have expected it to, Betty had written a letter for Ice King to take to Turtle Princess so as to leave the selection of the books up to her discretion instead – and a work table outfitted with a small collection of lab equipment – in this case a collection that was exactly to Betty's specifications, as she was able to pass her list of requests directly on to Princess Bubblegum when PB had dropped by to make absolutely certain that Betty really didn't want to be rescued. Altogether it was a very nice set-up that Betty had. And she was absolutely sick of it.

What she wasn't sick of was the Ice Kingdom itself. True, it wasn't a perfect place to live. There was the constant cold, but it honestly wasn't as bad as Betty might have expected it to be given a name like _Ice_ Kingdom, and as long as she could bundle up a bit, the cold had never really bothered her all that much anyway. The whole place smelled like penguin, but she'd mostly gotten used to that, and it was better than the sugar smell in the Candy Kingdom. Betty had a sweet tooth, but smelling all sugar all the time had been starting to give her a stomachache. She'd rather deal with the penguins; they didn't smell _that_ bad, really. The Ice Kingdom wasn't nearly as well-equipped for research as the Candy Kingdom, but that was the fixable problem. If she weren't stuck in a cell, then there would be more than enough space in the castle to meet her needs without encroaching on the Ice King's space and as far as the equipment itself, she was certain the Ice King and Princess Bubblegum would be willing to help her get her hands on what she needed. Then there was the problem of the fact that living in the Ice Kingdom meant having to deal with the Ice King on a regular basis, and as for him, well…

Betty had had a particularly odious supervisor once who had had a son that Betty's boss thought was just the most delightful and precocious little thing that ever walked the face of the planet, and she brought him around whenever she could. Betty and her coworkers, on the other hand, would have happily locked him in the closet if they had thought they could get away with it, and if they thought there was any real chance of that shutting him up. This kid had become convinced, probably by the way his mother fussed over him, that the full attention of anyone and everyone at all times with his rightful due, and if he thought he wasn't getting it, he was liable to throw a tantrum. But what they had managed to figure out was that this kid was so self-importance all you had to do was ask him about something about himself and then pretend, not even particularly convincingly, to be rapt with attention and he could go on for hours talking about himself with no need for further interaction other than the occasional nod and vague murmur of agreement. Sure, the Ice King was more than a bit deranged and if he threw a tantrum it would be for far more dangerous than anything an eleven year old boy could dream up, probably, but he was still less annoying and more easily managed than the "amazingly intelligent and ever-so talented" Gregory.

Besides, whenever problems it might have, there was one thing about the Ice Kingdom to recommend it highly over the Candy Kingdom: it was _quiet_. True, the Ice King could cause enough trouble for five people, but with him at least, Betty had no problems with ignoring him when she didn't want to deal with his junk. But the candy people were all so nice and so interested in her and so earnest in their desire to see Ooo's second human settling in well, that she would have felt bad ignoring them. Not to mention most of them were dumb enough for two people, and so it was completely exhausting dealing with them all the time.

Here in the Ice Kingdom, Betty only had to deal with the Ice King, the penguins, who were mostly content to leave Betty be, and a handful of visitors: Princess Bubblegum twice, once when she was making sure Betty didn't want to be rescued and once to drop off Betty's stuff; Finn and Jake together once when they had rushed over after Lady had told Jake that Betty was being held captive, but before it could be explained that Betty wasn't accepting rescuers at the moment; then Finn by himself once for what Betty had been privately calling their weekly human culture time; and Lady once. Betty actually been a bit worried that time because while Lady understood English perfectly well, Betty didn't know more than a word or two of Korean and she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to effectively communicate that she didn't want to be rescued. Luckily, it seemed Princess Bubblegum had already explained the situation, and Lady had actually just bought a picnic lunch for them to share with each other and with a smattering of the penguins. Lady seemed a bit annoyed when the Ice King had sat down and joined them too, but Betty actually appreciated having at least one other party present that she could actually understand. But besides those four who Betty genuinely considered friends, she had been left on her own in the Ice Kingdom, the rest of her well-wishers too put off by the Ice King to come see her, which suited Betty just fine.

So here was Betty's dilemma. She wanted to stay in the Ice Kingdom, but she refused to stay in this cell one minute longer. But if she did escape and tried just hanging around the Ice King's place, odds seemed fairly high that he would freeze and imprison her again. That wasn't to say escaping was entirely out of the question; given a choice between being stuck in a cage in the Ice Kingdom and free in the Candy Kingdom, Betty would take the latter. Still there had to be something else she could try first.

"Hey, umm, Gunther?" Betty hazarded. She knew by sight which penguin was the Ice King's main companion, Gunter, but she still had trouble telling the rest of them apart, and it certainly didn't help that all of them had names that were variations on Gunter. Betty wasn't even convinced that the rest them actually had unique and distinct names; it was entirely possible that the Ice King just called any given penguin by whatever variation on Gunter he felt like using at that moment.

The penguin milling about on the other side of the room turned around and waddled over to her, so Betty had either gotten it right, or the penguin didn't really care. "Could you go get the Ice King for me?" she asked.

"Wenk," possibly-Gunther said before walking off.

A few minutes later, the Ice King entered the room. "You needed something, princess?"

"Still not a princess," Betty reminded him. He was getting better at that, though. She only had to remind him once or twice per conversation now.

"All beautiful ladies are princesses on the inside," Ice King said. That was kind of sweet, actually. He would say things like that sometimes, sweet or insightful or well-reasoned. "Of course, some of the other princesses are real uggos, so I guess ugly ladies are princesses on the inside too." Then he would say something like that and ruin it. And this was the person she was going to be semi-willingly living with for the foreseeable future. _Must_ be a touch of insanity.

"So what can I do for you? Do you want more books; I found a whole bunch you're gonna love," Ice King said.

"Maybe later. For now I wanted to tell you I'm ready to offer you my parole, if you're willing to take it," Betty said. She was fairly certain it was usually the jailors offering the prisoners the potential for parole, and not the other way around, but she doubted that the Ice King would ever come up with the idea on his own.

"What's a parole? Is it fattening, because I'm on a diet," Ice King said, patting his stomach. Case in point.

"No, parole as when I make certain promises about my behavior, and in return you let me out of this cell," Betty explained.

"But if I let you out of the cell, you might run away," Ice King said, and his tone certainly made it sound like he thought he was being reasonable.

"Which would be why the first promise I would have to make would be to stay here with you," Betty replied just as reasonably. "We could set up a bedroom for me, one not inside a cage, and a study or lab of some sort and I could live here not as your prisoner but as your… as your roommate."

"I've got a better idea; we could just get married!" Ice King said, with unrestrained glee at the prospect.

"That's not happening," said Betty.

"Well I'm not letting you out of there until you agree to marry me," said Ice King.

"Fine. I'd rather stay in here then." It looked like it was going to have to be the Candy Kingdom after all. Or maybe she could find somewhere completely different altogether. With any luck, if she stopped living right there in Princess Bubblegum's castle in the middle of the Candy City, the stream of visitors would slow down somewhat, if not to the degree that they had in the Ice Kingdom. At the very least, it wouldn't smell like sugar all the time. Yes, maybe that was the better idea.

"Is the prospect of marrying me really so terrible?" Ice King asked, utterly heartbroken and Betty felt a stirring of sympathy. The Ice King really was an infantile, obnoxious jerk, but he was also very obviously sad and lonely; it was hard not to feel bad for him sometimes.

"I wouldn't marry anyone after knowing them for only two weeks," Betty answered, which was certainly one of the reasons she didn't want to marry the Ice King, if far from the only or most pressing.

"That's a good point, marriage is a very serious thing, and we wouldn't want to rush into it," Ice King said knowledgably, all traces of his earlier sorrow gone in an instant. And that honestly only made Betty feel sorrier for him. "Alright, maybe I'll let you out of there before we get married, but until we do you aren't allowed to leave the castle, and we have to have dinner together every night, so we can get to know each other."

"I can't leave the castle unless I tell you where I'm going, how long I'm going to be gone, and get your permission first, and I'm the one who makes the dinner every night," Betty countered. She'd had more than enough meals made up of penguin food for one lifetime, thanks. There was a reason she'd asked for the pantry full of snack food.

"You want to make dinner for me?" Ice King asked with stars in his eyes.

"Let me out of here and I'll make some right now," Betty offered.

"Goody," Ice King said. He pulled the key out of his underwear – giving Betty a good look at his excessively skinny legs and waistline and causing her to reflect that getting off penguin food might be a good thing for him as well, whatever he said about being on a diet – but he paused before placing it in the lock. "You're sure you aren't going to run away?"

"I promise," Betty said.

"Because if you do I'll just capture you again and I won't let you out until you marry me this time."

Honestly, Betty seriously doubted he had the focus to specifically come after her again if she ever did decide to run away, but that was a moot point regardless. "I'm not going anywhere," she assured him.

Ice King nodded, then slowly opened the door and moved aside to let her out, shifting from foot to foot as he stood there. Betty stepped out and gave him a bright and incredibly forced smile – it really was an awkward situation, even if she had gotten more or less exactly what she wanted. "Which way to the kitchen?" she asked.

The fridge and pantry looked pretty sparse when Betty got there. Betty actually thought she had more food in her little snack cupboard, though none of that was particularly meant for cooking a meal with. Ah well, she could throw together some sort of stir fry for tonight and get the Ice King to go get some groceries, or ideally let her go get some, tomorrow.

The Ice King was convinced to make himself scarce while she was doing the cooking, but there was no avoiding him while actually eating dinner, since that was the point of this whole exercise. He complimented her cooking quite profusely, but Betty noticed that despite that he was barely picking at his food. She cast a suspicious look at him; she appreciated compliments just as much as the next person, but she appreciated sincerity more.

"It really is very good," Ice King said. "I just can't eat too much because of my diet."

"Hmmm," Betty replied noncommittedly. She supposed she was his roommate-slash-prisoner and not his mother, and the Ice King was a grown adult, mostly. If he didn't want to eat, he didn't want to eat.

"So Betty, what's your favorite sport?" Ice King asked.

"What's _your_ favorite sport?" Betty countered almost absent-mindedly, her thoughts already turning away from the Ice King and back to what sort of spices might have improved this dish and what to put on her list of groceries for tomorrow.

"No, we've talked about me enough already; I want to know about you," the Ice King said.

Betty looked up at him and blinked a few times in surprise. Gregory had never done that. "I'm not all that into spectator sports, though I was on the track team at my high school," Betty answered honestly, so taken aback by the turn of events she wasn't really sure what else to do.

"Really? Did you guys win any awards or anything?" said Ice King.

"Well, not me personally, I was a pretty average runner. But our team usually did pretty well at track meets and the like," Betty told him.

The Ice King continued to dig in to her experience in track then, once he had apparently exhausted that subject to his satisfaction he moved on to her "quirky behaviors" and then her favorite movies and TV shows and then her preferred hobbies and so on and so forth. It felt more like an interview than an actual conversation, but he was at least listening to her answers and seemed genuinely interested in them, which made it better than some of the dates Betty had been on.

Huh, there was a disturbing thought: dating the Ice King.

The whole thing lasted for quite a while, as each time Betty would go to say something about being done with dinner and seeing to cleaning up, the Ice King would take another bite of food. She'd almost think he was doing it on purpose, except he didn't even seem to realize he was doing it, and appeared sincerely surprised some time later when he looked down and saw his food was gone. "So much for my diet, huh? You're just too distracting, princess."

"Betty," she corrected, standing up and reaching for his plate.

"Oh no," Ice King said, holding the plate away from her and actually plucking her plate out of her hands. "You cooked, so that means I clean up."

"Why don't I help dry; I wanted to find a room to be my new bedroom after this, and if I help you with this, the faster you can come help me with that," Betty suggested, barely missing a beat. She was almost getting used to Ice King's sporadic courteousness now.

"Good thinking," Ice King agreed. "You know we make a good team. Maybe we should just get married and make it official."

"No," Betty said, bluntly and succinctly. The Ice King didn't look particularly pleased by that answer, carrying the dishes back into the kitchen with a mulish expression, but he didn't try to argue either.

So maybe this wasn't the worst idea Betty had ever had.


	4. Wherein Two Gifts are Given

"Are you sure there aren't any good rooms somewhere closer to the main floor?" Betty asked after they had gone down what she estimated to be five flights of stairs – it was hard to be sure, what with the way they twisted and spiraled back and forth and all over the place – and showed no signs of stopping.

"Bah, good," Ice King said dismissively. "I'm taking you to the _best_ room."

It had been a few days since Betty and the Ice King had come to an agreement about Betty's living arrangements, specifically that she wouldn't be living in a cell. The cell in question had since been returned to its previous pristine and bare condition. Betty had thought about asking the Ice King to get rid of it altogether, but the only leverage she could think of to convince him to stop kidnapping princesses was her own presence, and he was already getting that wrong idea well enough without her saying anything to encourage it along. No, best just leave it be for the time being, and if he did try to capture anyone else Betty would get them out, hopefully without ending up back in the cell herself this time.

As for all Betty's belongings that used to be in the cell, those had been moved either to Betty's new bedroom or somewhere in the general living space, or, in the case of some of the ice furniture that was no longer needed, crushed and swept outside. She had also had the opportunity over the last few days to put together a list of things that she considered living essentials that the Ice King apparently did not, such as adequate groceries, and most of that had been gotten now too. She'd even gotten to go out herself to get it, with the Ice King's accompaniment, as the idea of the two of them shopping together to properly furnish their house apparently appealed to his weird marriage thing.

So at this point just about everything about her new living situation had come together, except she still needed a room she could use for her study. Her books in her bedroom and her desk and workbench in the living room were fine as temporary measures, but she really did prefer to have a work space that was separate from her leisure space. She'd mentioned as much to the Ice King and he had gotten very excited, saying he knew the perfect place for her.

"How deep down is this best room anyway?" Betty asked.

"We're almost there now," Ice King told her, continuing past another landing. This one had a large doorway in the shape of the crown, and Betty peered inside the room curiously as they passed it. It was a mess, with assorted boxes overflowing with all kinds of junk piled up hodgepodge everywhere and papers and newspaper clippings and photographs all scattered about and there was even an old roller top desk against a side wall that had been tipped completely over.

Betty hadn't even realized that she had stopped to stare until suddenly the Ice King was standing in front of her, blocking her view. "That's the The Past Room. It's private," he told her, before muttering to himself, "I'm going to have to get a curtain or something to block this doorway."

"Oh. Okay," Betty said. She wouldn't want to intrude on his privacy, especially since the Ice King was shrewd enough in his way to use that as an excuse to intrude on her privacy. Besides, she wasn't sure that she even really wanted all the details of his past anyway.

They went down one more story and then finally stopped. "Here we are. See it's even got a door like you like. Two doors even!" Ice King said, gesturing to the set of double doors. Because apparently wanting a door at the entrance to her bedroom made her some kind of door-obsessed person. "Now close your eyes."

"Why?" Betty asked suspiciously.

"Because that's part of the surprise!" Ice King said. Betty eyed him for a moment longer, then obliged. Mostly anyway, she kept just wide enough slits open to see if he tried anything funny. But he just opened the doors up and gently guided her through. Once they were a few feet into the room he said, "Okay, now open them."

Whatever Betty had been expecting from Ice King's perfect room, it wasn't this. This was a _library_ , a fairly large one, at least by personal collection standards. It was a big roundish room with bookshelves taller than she could reach inserted into about three-quarters of the wall space around, and then a ladder leading up to a second floor balcony ring with even more bookshelves. There were a few empty spots on the walls, perfect for pushing her desk up against or putting in new bookshelves to accommodate her books, since all these shelves looked to be already full, but the majority of the space not taken up by books was instead used for a great display case of a number of different artifacts that she was going to have to take a closer look at later. In the center of the room was a good-sized table with a few chairs around it, perfect to turn into a worktable once it was cleared off. There wasn't any sort of cozy reading area, but that was fine. Betty was happy to do any light reading like that upstairs, and this was clearly a room meant for work and research, a supposition that was supported as she glanced at the titles of the books as she began a circuit of the room and saw that they seemed to consist of mostly textbooks and research literature and such.

"So, do you like it?" Ice King asked, practically bouncing with anticipation to hear her answer.

"This is _amazing_ ," Betty told him. "Where did you get all these books, most of them look incredibly old. Did you inherit this place from the previous Ice King?"

" _Previous_ Ice King? I'm the only Ice King! I think," he said. "And I built this castle myself. And then Gunter rebuilt it, but this is still all my stuff."

"You put these books together?" Betty asked incredulously. The Ice King wasn't stupid; he was crazy, lacked focus at times, was so hyper-focused on other things, like wanting Betty or somebody to agree to marry him, that it left him oblivious to other things that were abundantly apparent to anyone with half a brain, like that neither Betty nor anyone else had any interest in marrying him, was incredibly self-centered, had a terrible memory, and, it bore repeating, was crazy, but Betty had seen glimmers of real intelligence in him too. That being said, he hardly struck her as the type to curate a collection like his.

"I did. And now I'm giving them to you," Ice King said.

"What?"

"Well I don't use them anymore; I forgot this room was even here until a few days ago. And you like books so much, so I thought you could have this room." Ice King said.

"I… Thank you. That's very generous and very thoughtful," Betty said, feeling touched and overwhelmed. And here she'd been thinking of him as self-centered and a host of other unkind things. Obviously he was a much better person than she had been giving him credit for, even if he was crazy.

"Generous and thoughtful enough to marry me?" Ice King asked. Yes, definitely still crazy.

"No," Betty answered bluntly. "But still very thoughtful. Thank you again."

"You're welcome, princess. I mean Betty," Ice King said, and she smiled at him.

Betty continued her walk around the room, the Ice King trailing behind her. The books all did appear to be as old as she first thought, a good number of them she even recognized from her own time period. Maybe the second floor was earmarked for more recent things, and all the older ones were on the first; the things in the display case certainly seemed old enough to support that conclusion. So after a minute more of looking around on this floor, Betty climbed up the ladder, only to be greeted with a strange and very unexpected sight when she got up there.

"Is this your old suit too?" Betty asked with no small amount of amusement as she tried to picture the Ice King dressed up in it, complete with vest and red bow tie, and failed utterly.

"Yeah, it's mine," Ice King replied, sounding none too pleased by the idea.

"What, really?" Betty said. She'd only been joking; the Ice King having a suit like this seemed about as likely as… well as him being the one who'd put together this library. On the other hand, Betty didn't have any explanation for how these things would have gotten here if they weren't his. Unless there really had been another Ice King before him and he'd forgotten; his memory was pretty flexible.

"Yes really. I know it doesn't fit with my cool style, but the truth is… ugh, this is so embarrassing!" Ice King said, hiding his face in his hands. "The truth is I used to be a nerd."

"Is that all?" said Betty. She didn't see how that required that much theatrics, even in the unlikely seeming event that it was true.

"You don't understand; I wasn't just a nerd, I was a crazy total big nerd. I even wore glasses!" Ice King said, apparently determined to impress the direness of the situation on her.

"I like nerds," Betty said softly to herself, then louder, "I wear glasses too, you know."

"But you're too beautiful to be some lame nerd. You're just a really smart, really beautiful lady," Ice King said.

"Thank you. I think," Betty replied. She grabbed the hanger off the peg it was rested on and offered the suit to the Ice King. "Well, do you want it back?" Even if they weren't his clothes, and it was possible they were, there wasn't anything she needed them for.

"I should just get rid of it," the Ice King said, looking at the suit thoughtfully. Then he shrugged and took it from her and draped it over his shoulder before bending down and picking up the shoes sitting on the floor. "I'll just toss it in the back of the closet; I hate to throw anything away."

That settled, Betty continued her look around the upper floor, finding that the books up here were just as old as the others downstairs. Finally she decided that the collection itself must be generally old, created a long time ago and not updated since. That would certainly fit with the Ice Kings comment about forgetting the room was here; maybe it had even been sealed off. Curiosity satisfied for the moment – she would have to make a more in-depth survey of all the titles later – Betty headed back down the ladder to deal with what she considered the first order of business here.

"Do you know why all these books are piled up like this?" Betty asked the Ice King as she began sorting through the thirty or so books that were scattered haphazardly about on the center table.

The Ice King looked up from the book he was holding – he wasn't helping her sort through them so much as picking the books up, looking at them, then putting back down exactly where he'd found them. "They were in the way of the new doors, so I moved them," he explained, gesturing to the double doors they had come through.

That might explain it. Although, there were a lot less books here than what she would have thought if he had taken out a whole bookshelf. Maybe these ones here had been in some kind of display case as well. It would account for why the rest of the library was mostly organized alphabetically by title, while these seemed to be a random mishmash. And a lot of the books here were antiques even by the standards of this collection, which would be consistent with that idea as well. As for the other books... maybe they were particular favorites? Nerd Ice King, or whoever, had good taste in that case.

"Whoops," Ice King said, and out of the corner of her eye Betty saw something flutter to the ground near her feet. She bent down to pick it up for him and found it was a picture of a little girl hugging a stuffed animal.

"Who's this?" she asked, passing the photo back over to the Ice King.

"I don't know," he answered, slipping the photo into his pocket, and Betty shrugged it off and went to pick up another book. But before she could take a look at _Classic Norwegian Folktales_ , the Ice King spoke again. "Oh hey look, this one's signed."

"Really?" Betty asked idly looking over at the book he was holding. Then she realized what it was and grabbed it from him, staring at the title page and unable to fully believe what she was seeing even as she was looking at it. "This is my book."

"I know, they're all your books; I gave them to you. But you didn't have to snatch it away from me," Ice King said petulantly.

"No, this is _my_ book; I wrote it, see," Betty said, pointing to her name on the page and showing it to the Ice King.

"You didn't tell me you were an author!" Ice King said. "You know I write a lot too. I've got this great series…"

The Ice King kept talking, but Betty had stopped paying attention, contemplating the book in her hands. Her book had been modestly successful, enough to make her feel accomplished and like the time writing it had been time well spent, but it had never received any sort of great popularity or acclaim or anything, certainly nothing to the point that she had held book signings. As such, there had never been more than a handful of signed copies out there, ones that she had given to people she knew personally upon request. Like her dad: he had insisted on buying his own copy, separate from the one she had given to the both of her parents, and then he had had her sign it because he said it was going to be worth a fortune when she won a Nobel Prize. Not that he would ever sell it, he assured her, he just wanted to have it to show off.

"Hey," Ice King said, poking Betty and startling her attention back to the present. "Is there something wrong with that book?"

"Oh, no, of course not," Betty said, blinking a few times rapidly. "I was just wondering who it belonged to before it ended up here. I had been thinking my dad, but I'm pretty sure I put a personal inscription in his copy. Maybe it was Tyler's, my research assistant. He brought a copy in on his very first day of work to get me to sign it. Apparently after he was hired he'd gone out and bought it and he claims he read the whole thing in one sitting. Tyler was a good kid, you know. Really bright, and ambitious, he was going to go places, I could tell. Or he would have, if not for…" Betty gave a little sniff and discreetly wiped a finger under one eye.

"Hey, it's okay –"

"No, it's not okay," she snapped at him. "Tyler is dead and so are my parents because they and everyone I ever knew or cared about were killed in a war that destroyed my entire world. And now I'm stuck a thousand years in the future in a world that's seems completely insane compared to anything I was used to and where my species might be extinct besides me and one other person, and I don't know how I got here or why of everyone in the world I was the one saved or why any of this is happening, and it is _not_ okay."

"You didn't let me finish," Ice King said irritably. "I was saying that it's okay _to cry_. I do it all the time. I don't know anything about this war stuff you're talking about, but it sounds like you've been through some pretty janked up stuff. And crying can ease the pain of the crushing abyss of loneliness inside you. For a little bit. Sometimes. So you don't have to be embarrassed about it."

"Oh," Betty said and she found herself blinking rapidly again, causing one fat tear to roll down her face.

It wasn't that she had been deliberately trying not to cry over it; why would she? None of her friends nor any of the candy people would have judged her if she had. The Ice King was right after all, it had been some pretty janked up stuff she had gone through, and she knew that everyone understood that. And even if she hadn't wanted to cry in front of anyone, she hardly would have been the first one ever to cry herself to sleep. Looking back on it she thought that at first that maybe it had been just too much and too big to really take in. And then by the time she had started to truly comprehend what had happened to her, she was already well on her way to adjusting to this new situation. Betty was remarkably good at adjusting to things, principally because she focused on the now and the future and the things she could do, and didn't spend time dwelling on what was past and might-have-beens. Her friends had seen her as happy, and she had been, mostly, and they had all moved on from it. So it wasn't that she had been deliberately trying not to cry over it, it was just that she somehow hadn't.

"I think I might try doing that now," she said, the second tear now falling, then the third, then the fourth, and then they were coming too fast and thick to count.

"You need one of these?" Ice King asked, holding his arms open to her. This was still the _Ice King_ a crazy old man who was still technically holding her prisoner here, but maybe she still found him to be very kind and sweet when she looked past the crazy and maybe not even the crazy was bothering her as much as she might have thought it would and maybe he was growing on her a little bit and maybe not any of that mattered anyway in the face of the fact that this stupid book and the stupid signature, her own signature which she had penned thousands upon thousands of times, had suddenly brought the heavy weight of reality crashing down on her head and Betty really, really needed a hug right now.

She sort of fell into him, and he brought his arms around her in a hold that was surprisingly firm from such an old man. Betty began to truly sob then, crying for all the things and people she had lost and for everything that had happened to her over the last few months. She cried and cried and at some point her legs gave out and Ice King gently lowered them both to the ground, his arms still around her. In fact, he held her for the whole time she was crying, rubbing her back or stroking her hair and murmuring all sorts of meaningless comforting things to her. And yet with all the different things he said to her, he never once tried to tell her it was okay, and for that she was grateful. Of course, after she had finished crying he had tried to kiss her, and for that she was rather less grateful and mostly pretty annoyed at, but all the rest of it had actually been kind of… nice.


	5. Wherein Betty Meets Someone New

"Hey Simon, did you – you're not Simon."

"No, I'm not," Betty agreed. She declined to get out her chair or to put away her book, instead just staring blankly at the girl floating in the entryway with some kind of instrument strapped to her back, waiting for her to explain who she was and what she was doing in Betty's home, aside from looking for some guy named Simon, that was.

The girl, for her part, seemed just as confused by Betty's presence as Betty was by hers. "Who are you? Crud, are you some new princess he's kidnapped? Do you need me to help you get out of here?" Well, there was no question as to which "he" the girl was referring to this time at least.

"I'm not a princess." Betty lived in hope that someday she wouldn't have to be constantly explaining that to people, though as long as she was living with the Ice King, she doubted that day would be coming anytime soon. "And I don't need to be rescued; I live here." Of course, technically the Ice King was holding her prisoner, even if he hadn't kidnapped her so much as she had volunteered, but practically speaking all that really meant was that whenever Betty wanted to go out somewhere she either had to invite the Ice King along with her or deal with him "discreetly" spying on her from a distance. But that seemed like too much nuance to get into, especially with a stranger, even if she was a nice enough stranger to offer to rescue Betty.

The girl came in closer and got right up into Betty's face. "What are you doing?" Betty demanded.

"Trying to see if he's mind-controlling you. You haven't married him yet, have you?" Marceline said, peering into one of Betty's eyes, then the other.

"I'm not being mind-controlled," Betty snapped, pushing the girl back a bit. "And like I've told the Ice King _repeatedly_ , I'm not going to marry him. I live here because I like the Ice Kingdom; it's quiet. And the Ice King is my roommate and that's it."

The girl let out a little laugh. "You know, I think I like you. I'm Marceline," she said with a smile and a flash of vampire fangs that made it clear exactly which Marceline she must be. "What'd did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. It's Betty Grof," she answered, relaxing a bit. This girl wasn't a total stranger after all, even if they hadn't actually met yet. And Betty had been warned that Marceline could come off as a bit abrasive at first.

"Huh. Why does that name sound familiar to me?" Marceline asked.

"Someone might have mentioned me; I know I heard about you from Finn, Jake, and Princess Bubblegum off the top of my head," Betty suggested; she was assuming that was why Marceline had looked vaguely familiar to Betty, after all.

"Oh man, you've been talking to Bonnie? What did she say?" Marceline asked.

"Good things," Betty assured her, which was mostly true, aside from that one flip comment that Betty wasn't supposed to be mentioning anything about anyway. "That she's glad the two of you are getting along again."

"Oh," Marceline said, looking quietly pleased. "But Betty… where have I heard that name before?" She stared at Betty's face as intently as she had before, though not quite so up close and personal, as if that would reveal the answer to her question. Then she slowly began to rotate in the air until she was suspended completely upside down with her hands gripped tightly to the strap on her bass so it wouldn't fall and her long black hair dangling to the floor, showing off her pointed ears – speaking of things that seemed strangely familiar.

"Are you sure you didn't hear it from someone around the Candy Kingdom? Ooo's second human has been a pretty big topic of discussion lately, or at least it was before I moved up here last month," Betty said, looking at Marceline with her head held straight, despite the slight instinctive urge to tilt it to one side to compensation for Marceline's unusual position.

"No, I definitely would have remembered someone mentioning another human," Marceline said. "Maybe I'm just confusing you with someone else." Despite the implication that Marceline had given up on figuring it out, she kept hanging there upside-down, and Betty raised her eyebrows at the girl. Marceline returned the expression with a haughty and somewhat mocking one of her own, and Betty, feeling a bit silly because it was hard not to when you had someone floating upside-down pulling faces at you, stuck her tongue out.

Marceline laughed again, then grinned and somehow the prominently displayed forebodingly sharp teeth didn't make her look scary in the slightest, just especially pleased. "Okay, now I'm sure I like you," she said, flipping back over and landing on the ground. "So how exactly did you and Simon end up as roommates anyway? He's not exactly the easiest person to get along with."

"You mentioned a Simon when you first came in too; are you talking about the Ice King?" Betty asked. She couldn't think of who else Marceline could be referring to, unless one of the penguins was named Simon, but that wouldn't fit the established naming pattern for them at all, not to mention it didn't seem likely that Marceline had come here to see one of the penguins. Of course, it didn't seem terribly likely that she wanted to drop in on the Ice King either, but it was still more likely than the other.

"Yeah, I mean the Ice King," Marceline said, her nose crinkling ever so slightly in distaste as she used the Ice King's title. "Simon is his real name."

"Oh," Betty said. She hadn't actually thought his parents had named him Ice King or anything, but… well, she guessed she hadn't really thought about it much at all. "He never mentioned."

"He wouldn't. I'm pretty sure he thinks that Simon is just a nickname I came up with for him," Marceline said.

"Something happened to him," Betty said, and she had meant it to be a question, but it had come out as a statement instead. There were a lot of little things that had all been adding up over the past month to make Betty draw that conclusion, but the final nail in the coffin was just now, hearing the traces of sorrow that hung in the edges of Marceline's voice when she said that about the Ice King – no Simon, Betty definitely preferred Simon, it that sounded much more like a person and not a villain from a children's cartoon show – not being able to remember his own name.

"Yeah, a long time ago. He…" Marceline trailed off to look at Betty thoughtfully – Betty wished she knew what was so fascinating about her face today. "Why do you want to know?"

"Curiosity about the person I'm living with?" Betty suggested; it seemed a normal enough impulse to her. "And if I know what happened I might be able to help him. I'd like to, if I can."

"But why?" Marceline insisted.

"I need a reason to want to help someone?" Betty said.

"Nobody helps just anyone without some sort of reason, at least not unless they're some sort of do-gooder like Finn," Marceline said dismissively.

"I think it's nice that Finn spends so much time helping people," Betty said. Finn was a bit rambunctious and impulsive, but he was a very admirable kid overall in Betty's opinion.

"Oh yeah, no, Finn's great," Marceline agreed. "But he mostly helps people because he's got his own issues and it makes him feel bad for them. Which is fine for most people, but pity can't do anything to help Simon."

"Sympathy," Betty corrected.

"Same thing. Either way it won't help. So tell me: why do _you_ want to help him?"

"Well, I do feel sorry for him." Betty sometimes wondered if that wasn't part of what had motivated her crazy impulse to trade herself for Princess Bubblegum and her decision to stay in the Ice Kingdom. Even back when she thought of him as just a childish jerk, Simon had been so obviously so lonely and there was maybe something in that that something in Betty could relate to. "But beyond that, I… well, he's my friend. I know that sounds crazy and that _he's_ crazy, but once you get to know him he's actually very sweet. And funny and smart – it can be hard to tell because his memory and his focus are both so terrible, but he actually is smart – and he can be a lot of fun to spend time with. So he's my friend and that's why I want to help him," Betty said, feeling very defensive about her answer. It didn't just sound crazy, she knew, it genuinely was a touch insane. Befriending the Ice King was bad enough and befriending someone who was technically holding her prisoner was even worse and Simon was both of those things which meant that feeling this way couldn't be entirely healthy, but she still considered him a friend regardless.

Marceline didn't seem put off by or judgmental over Betty's answer though. If anything she looked happier than Betty had seen her yet. But of course she would, Marceline was friends with Simon too, she had to be. Princess Bubblegum had made mention of the rapport the two of them had, and Marceline had come out here specifically to see Simon and the way she had been questioning Betty's intentions just now had been fairly protective, the kind of thing you would expect from a friend or a family member even. It was nice to know that Betty wasn't the only one to see the good in Simon.

"You know, I think you might be able to help Simon out after all," Marceline said.

"Good. So what happened to him?" Betty asked.

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you," Marceline said, scoffing as though the very idea was ridiculous.

"What was all that about then, if you weren't going to tell me anyway?" said Betty.

"I probably would have told you if you really couldn't have helped, but you might, so I won't."

"What?" Betty said, trying to sort some sense out of Marceline's statement.

"Look, I don't know what all the rules for this thing are or how it works exactly. I only know what Simon told me before" – she left the before _what_ unspecified, but Betty assumed that she was referring to whatever had happened to cause Simon to loose hold of his memories – "and I think even he was guessing for most of it. But I know that you won't be able to do what you need to just because I tell you to do it and if I do tell you that might keep you from being able to do it at all. You have to be doing it for the right reasons," Marceline explained.

"And you think that because I consider Simon a friend, I might decide on my own to do whatever it is," Betty said.

"More or less," Marceline agreed.

"And you haven't been able to help him because you already know what needs to be done and so can't decide to do it organically," Betty continued. She thought she had a handle on this thing now.

Or she did, until Marceline pulled a very disgusted face at that suggestion. "No, that definitely was never going to happen no matter what. Gross."

That did not bode well for Betty doing whatever it was. Something must have showed in her expression, because Marceline quickly explained. "It's gross for me for personal reasons, but that won't be a problem for you. Unless…" Marceline peered at her intently _again_ , but shook it off a moment later. "No that's stupid. It'll be fine."

"There's nothing else you can tell me?" Betty asked. She understood, to a certain degree, that it was a necessity, but she really didn't like not knowing things.

"That depends, what do you want to know?" Marceline said.

"Will it be a problem if I figure out what happened to him on my own, rather than being told about it?" Curses could be funny about things like that, from what Betty understood. And she thought that there was a good chance that it was some sort of curse; it was her working theory at the moment at least. Because the rudimentary research she'd done on the matter suggested that curses were much more sensitive to motivations than organically occurring problems, and because the primary reason she'd done rudimentary research on curses in the first place was that her library, the one that Simon had supposedly put together, was full of books on curses.

"Maybe? Probably not, as long as you don't figure out what you're supposed to do about it? I don't really know," Marceline said.

Betty nodded, then tried to think of any other questions she might want to ask. The problem was she obviously didn't know what it was she didn't know, so it was hard to be sure where the boundaries of what she _couldn't_ know were. "Did Simon really used to be a nerd?" she finally settled on.

"Did Simon used to be… oh, huh. I guess he did," Marceline said, sounding almost surprised by her own answer. "I never really thought of him as one, but like you said, he is really smart, and he used to wear these super dorky glasses." Marceline made circles with her fingers and held them in front of her eyes to illustrate her point. "Why do you ask?"

"It was something he mentioned to me," Betty replied offhandedly as she thought about what Marceline had said. But before Betty could even begin to try and process the possible implications of that claim of Simon's actually being true, the two of them were interrupted by Simon himself.

"Princess, is there someone here? I hear voices," Simon called as he headed their way.

"Still not a princess. And yes, Marceline came for a visit," Betty called back.

"My pal Marceline is here? Now the party can really get started," Simon said, appearing in the doorway.

"Hey Simon." Marceline smiled at him, soft and fond and closed-mouthed, with her two fangs just sticking out over her lip, and suddenly Betty realized why she seemed so familiar. Betty had been a bit slow to put it together because she had gotten used to the fact some of Marceline's features, like her ashy skin and her pointed teeth and ears, were less out of place in Ooo than they would have been in the time period Betty was from, but she was sure Marceline was the little girl Betty had seen in the picture in the library the other day; her smile now looked just the same. But Betty also recalled being told by someone that Marceline was a thousand years old, so any picture of her as a child would have been necessarily been taken a very long time ago. Which begged the question, how old was Simon really, and how long ago had he been cursed?

"Hey Marceline. Have you met my new girlfriend, Betty?"

"I'm not your girlfriend," Betty reminded him.

Simon leaned toward Marceline and placed is hand over the side of his mouth so he could "whisper" to her conspiratorially. "She likes to play hard to get."

"Oh yeah?" Marceline said, sounding amused. "Well you know, Betty and I have been talking, and I definitely think she's a keeper."

Betty shot Marceline a dark look, but she didn't argue with her. Because Betty did get it: Simon was an old friend of Marceline's, a very old friend apparently, and he was hurting, so it made sense that Marceline would be willing to do whatever it took to help him. Except there wasn't anything she could do, besides do her best to make sure that Simon didn't decide to kick Betty out at some point while he was in the midst of one of his mercurial moods, as Betty was the only one who actually could do something to help him for whatever reason. Betty didn't typically like to indulge Simon in his delusions, because she didn't feel it was healthy for him, but she could see how doing so in this particular situation might be helpful. So yes, Betty did get it; she just wished that Marceline's ploy hadn't involved feeding into Simon's infatuation with Betty.

"You hear that Betty; Marceline likes you! Marceline never likes my ladies," Simon said.

"When have you ever had a girlfriend that I disliked? Besides the Empress," Marceline said, her expression going dark when she mentioned the name.

"What about the time you stole Princess Bubblegum from me? …Although I guess that might be a problem of liking my lady too much," Simon said, as though the idea was just occurring to him. "Wait a minute, Marceline, are you into princesses too? You could have told me! I would have let you have the ones I didn't want; you didn't have to steal my girlfriend."

"What? That's not, I didn't, I'm not," Marceline sputtered, and Betty had to cover her mouth with her hand to hide a laugh. "I never stole Bonnie from you, I just helped her escape a few times when you were holding her prisoner, _centuries_ ago. And besides, if anyone was stealing anyone's girlfriend – ugh, never mind. I am not having this conversation with you."

"You're not?" Simon asked, sounding genuinely confused. "Who are you having it with, Betty? Did I interrupt girl talk?"

"No, I'm not having it with anyone," Marceline insisted. "Let's not talk about my love life, okay?"

"Okay, but you know me and Bubblegum are through if you wanted to go after that," Simon said.

"Oh Grod, Simon, please, just stop," said Marceline, burying her face in her hands.

"I'm just saying it wouldn't bother me because I'm with Betty now. Or I would be, if she would agree to marry me already," he grumbled.

Betty forced herself to choke down her giggles so she could reply to that. "I just think we're better as friends," she told him.

Far from looking upset by that response, like Betty was used to, Simon regarded her with bright excited eyes. "We're friends?"

"Of course," she said, but even as she did, Betty realized there was no "of course" about it. She'd barely been willing to admit to herself that she considered him a friend until Marceline forced the issue, and Simon wasn't exactly adept at reading social cues, so it she really couldn't expect him to figure it out himself. "We're friends, Simon," she assured him.

Simon gave a little squeal of delight. "You even used my cool nickname! Does that mean… are we _best_ friends?"

And he looked so ecstatic about the idea, what could Betty say but, "Sure we can be best friends."

Simon gave another delighted noise, and Marceline was finally able to pull herself from her embarrassment so she could give Betty a pleased and grateful look. "You know," Simon said, once he'd calmed down a little, in an overly casual tone that Betty didn't trust a bit. "They say that the person you marry should be your best friend…"

"Not going to happen," Betty said.

There was the pout she had been expecting, but luckily Marceline swooped in to distract him. "Actually Simon, the reason I came over today was because I was working on a song and I thought it could use some drums. You think you could help out with that?"

"You bet I can," Simon said heading over to his drum kit, his good mood restored.

"What about you Betty? You're welcome to help if you're musically inclined," Marceline said.

"I don't play any instruments, but I'd love to stay and listen," Betty said.

"You should. Marceline's songs are the best," Simon opinioned.

"So you've said," Betty agreed. He'd put on a concert of Marceline covers for the penguins the other day, and while the wig on top of the crown was a little odd, once Betty had helped him sort that out – as much as she could anyway, Simon had an awful lot of hair, and there was only so much she could do to compress it down under the wig – she'd actually found the whole thing kind of enjoyable. The songs were certainly good, even if Simon didn't have the best singing voice by any means, and she did assume that Marceline didn't use the word Gunter quite so much in the original versions.

"Great, you can tell us what you think when we're done," Marceline said. Then she turned to Simon, flipping her bass around to the front. "Okay, so I already have the bassline pretty much figured out, so for the drums I was thinking…"

Betty picked her book back up, thinking she might read a little while she was waiting on the two of them to finish getting set up and start actually playing. She made herself comfortable in the chair again, curling her feet up underneath her and leaning against the armrest. As she started to read, the sound of Marceline and Simon's conversation washed over her, and Betty couldn't help but smile.


	6. Wherein There May Be Something There

Life in the Ice Kingdom settled into a comfortable routine, though "routine" might be the wrong word for it. Left completely to her own devices, Betty did have a regular schedule of sorts for herself, how much time to spend on her work of researching magic and curses each day, the latter of which she was becoming more and more convinced was at the root of what had happened to Simon; how long to spend on her various leisure activities around the house; how often to try and make sure she got together with some friend or other so that she had some sort of social life besides Simon and the penguins; her day once a week to do any chores or errands that needed to be taken care of; and dinner with Simon every night, of course.

On the other hand, their nightly dinners were the only thing that Simon had resembling a routine. Betty wasn't even entirely sure he would have stuck to that, if her making dinner every night hadn't reminded him. And then the two of them eating dinner together always seemed to cue him to propose to her at the end of the meal, so Betty supposed that might be considered a routine too. Except while he did religiously ask her to marry him every night after dinner, he was also prone to asking it at any hour of the day, whenever it happened to pop into his mind. That might actually be a good description of what Simon did with his time otherwise, just whatever happened to pop into his mind. Somedays this meant he was jumping from activity to activity so quickly that Betty couldn't keep up with what he was doing from one minute to the next, even when she was nominally doing it with him. Other days some idea would grab his attention and he would be so focused on it that nothing could pull him away all day except the sounds and smells of Betty cooking dinner – that was a bit flattering actually.

His capricious behavior didn't always managed to get her dragged into it, but it did often enough, much more often than she might have guessed when she first decided to live here with him. The thing was, most of the things Simon wanted to do were _fun,_ silly, yes, but even though Betty didn't consider herself a silly person by nature, she never saw what there was to be embarrassed about over silliness. It was actually nice having someone around that could introduce a little silliness into her life sometimes. She just wished it wasn't all the time, or that he was better about taking no for an answer when she said she had other things she wanted to do.

That wasn't entirely fair. Sometimes he'd accept her turning down his invitation to join him in whatever thing had caught his fancy with a flippant "your loss" and there were other times when he didn't even extend the invitation in the first place. But unfortunately it didn't always, or even usually, go that easily.

Things came to a head in that regard one afternoon when Simon had come bursting into the library demanding that Betty come penguin sledding with him. She wasn't sure if he meant he had a sled and wanted to go sledding _with_ the penguins, if he wanted to go sledding _on_ the penguins, or if he was intending to slide down the snow on his stomach _like_ a penguin – the first possibility sounded like it might be fun and the latter two sounded like they might be something she would normally intervene in before someone, most likely Simon, got hurt – but regardless of what he meant, Betty was busy at the moment. She was working her way through a particularly dense and dry book and she didn't want to leave it just as she had gotten into the flow of the author's language.

She turned him down, and it became apparent that this was going to be one of his difficult days, when he essentially threw a tantrum because he wasn't getting things his way. It escalated quickly from there to the point where he was floating about eight feet off the ground with ice and magic gathered at his fingertips. Simon had only ever actually used his ice magic on her the one time on that first day, but Betty was always aware somewhere in the back of her mind that he could do it again, and that thought quite frankly terrified her. Sure, she hadn't been that upset on the one occasion previous, but it was one thing to become aware of something after the fact when all was said and done and had turned out fine, and quite another to be able to see it coming and allow plenty of time for the anticipation to fill her with a dread she didn't fully understand. As such, this was usually when she capitulated and went along with whatever stupid thing Simon wanted her to do. But not today.

Today Betty was too mad to be afraid, and she was absolutely done with being terrorized. She wasn't going to back down this time, and if that meant the Ice King froze her, then so be it. Intellectually at least she knew she would be fine; if Simon didn't unfreeze her himself, one of her friends was bound to figure out what had happened and rescue her, and she had survived being frozen before so she was sure she could survive it again. And if he did attack her like that, then at least Betty would know that no matter what draws the Ice Kingdom or Simon himself had, and no matter what promises Betty might have made, she couldn't stay here any longer. At least then Betty could start trying to move on with her life.

"No, I don't care what you say or do, I am not going to go along with every stupid little whim you have just because you want me to and I am sick and tired of being bullied in my own home," Betty yelled.

"I'm not bullying you, I'm just trying to make you do what I want you to do," Simon said.

"That's bullying! Not everything in the world is going to conform to what you want it to," said Betty.

"Of course it doesn't! If it did you would have married me by now," Simon said. "I don't understand why you're being so mean to me when I just want us to spend time together!"

"I'm not being mean! I'm allowed to stand up for myself. And if you want to spend time together so bad, why don't you do what I want to do sometimes? I'm going to read my book and if you want to find something quiet to do in here with me fine, but I am not going penguin sledding or anything else with you right now," Betty said.

Simon made a wordless scream of frustration and glared at her and Betty was sure that this was going to be it. He was going to freeze her and she was going to wake up back in that cell all over again. She braced herself against the faint shiver of fear that ran through her and waited for it. And then Simon turned around and flew out of the room.

Betty's legs gave out beneath her and she just barely managed to maneuver herself back into her chair before she collapsed entirely, feeling hollowed out and shocked and _relieved_. He hadn't and she felt now with a sudden certainty that he wouldn't either in the future. She couldn't really say why she felt that; Simon was changeable and hard to predict and there was no reason to assume that because he'd backed down this time that he would next time or the time after that, but she was going to assume it anyway. Because Simon was changeable, but he had his constants too. Gunter was a constant, though Princess Bubblegum hadn't been able to tell her for sure whether Gunter was a series of penguins all with the same name or one preternaturally long-lived penguin. The obsession with finding someone to marry was a constant. Marceline still wasn't willing to tell Betty much of substance about Simon, but she'd said enough for Betty to piece together that seeking Marceline out was a constant too. So maybe now Betty and treating her with some modicum of respect would also be a constant... Well, it was a nice thought at least.

Betty looked over at her book, but she wasn't in any kind of headspace to read it now. Maybe she could grab one of the fairy tale compilations and flip through that; it seemed like the kind of thing to help calm her down and steady her nerves. Just as soon as she felt like she could get up and walk again.

Betty was just starting in on _East of the Sun, West of the Moon_ when Simon came back in and she tensed, just a little bit. But he didn't try to pick their fight back up, in fact he barely even looked at her when he came in. He walked straight over to her work table, cleared some space in front of the currently unoccupied chair for a notebook he'd brought with him, then sat down and started scribbling away in it quietly.

Betty stared at him in disbelief. She hadn't really meant what she had said about him joining her, or maybe more accurately she hadn't really thought it worth meaning because she hadn't really believed he would follow up on it. She couldn't recall ever seeing him do anything quietly, intently and focused on occasion, but not quietly. Betty kind of wanted to ask him what he was working on, but she was afraid that might undermine what was happening here, so she just said a soft, "Thank you."

"For what?" Simon asked.

"For doing what I wanted to do," Betty said. "You know, maybe after dinner we can go penguin sledding." It only seemed fair after all.

"Ooo, what's penguin sledding; it sounds fun," Simon said, having apparently completely forgotten about the thing she though he was near ready to attack her over less than twenty minutes ago.

Betty laughed, and it wasn't an entirely happy sound, but it wasn't an entirely unhappy one either. "I don't even know."

"Well how are we supposed to do it if you don't know what it is?" Simon demanded. Then he took a closer look at her and frowned. "Hey, are you okay?"

"No," Betty replied honestly. "But I think I'll get there."

* * *

And she did get there. It was a little strange, because by any objective measure, nothing much changed after that conversation. The only thing was that now Simon would occasionally come down to the library to write while Betty was working on her research, but as Betty later discovered that he had been working on these fanfictions since long before she had arrived, she didn't know that that could even be counted as a change really. But despite that, Betty felt different, lighter or freer maybe, now that she no longer had the question of what Simon might do if he ever got really angry hanging over her head like a sword. It was strange too, how unaware a person could be about how very much something was weighing on them until it was gone.

Another thing she supposed that might have changed a little was that she actually found herself doing more things that Simon wanted to do too. Not significantly more perhaps, but something about knowing that she could say no and have it stand, seemed to make it easier to say yes when some crazy whim struck Simon and he wanted to drag her along for the ride. Or at least that was the only explanation for why Betty found herself standing at the entrance to the ice castle about to let Simon take her flying. That or her hidden adventurer's spirit or the touch of insanity. Definitely not a spark from a brilliant mind.

"Are you sure this is safe; you can manage another person?" Betty asked, peering out the opening to the outside at ground below. Betty wasn't particularly scared of heights, but that wouldn't make falling from this high up any less deadly.

"Relax, I only ever dropped someone once, and she's fine now," Simon said.

"That's not exactly reassuring," Betty replied dryly. "But okay, let's do this. How does this work, do you need to carry me or…?"

"It'll be fine so long as I'm holding onto you," Simon said, grabbing Betty's arm. That made sense; for all that his beard seemed to flap when he flew, it couldn't actually be holding him up in the air like a pair of wings. There had to be magic involved, and simply touching someone or something was usually enough to extend the magic field to cover them. "…Wait, you'd let me carry you, princess style?"

"I would have it if it had been necessary," Betty said. She twisted her arm in his grasp until she could grab hold of his hand with hers, lacing their fingers together tightly. There, now he wouldn't be dropping her. And as a happy side effect, Simon seemed so pleased that she had taken his hand, giggling with glee, that he completely forgot about wanting to carry her.

Betty took in a deep breath, then let it out. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's do this."

"Alright," Simon said, and then suddenly they were hovering up in the air. It was such a strange sensation floating weightlessly like that – a bit like being suspended in water, but also not – that she had to close her eyes for a moment to get used to it before she could even begin to deal with the oddity of looking down and seeing the gap between her feet and the floor. Then she opened them up again and screamed.

Betty really never had been afraid of heights before, or had any kind of problems with them whatsoever. But she'd also never been this high up off the ground with not only no visible means of support, but also no feeling of any support from anything. She was just hanging there in the middle of the air, and any second now gravity was going to remember she was there and she was going to plummet to the ground.

She tugged on Simon's hand, the only solid thing she could still feel, and managed to get herself close enough to him to wrap her free arm around his neck. Then she buried her face into his shoulder, screwing her eyes shut, and tucked her legs up, as if that would somehow stave off the ground. "Put me down, put me down, put me down," she chanted, and couldn't bring it in her to stop, even when the thought that Simon might misinterpret what she was saying and dropped her occurred in passing.

Suddenly gravity did reassert itself, and Betty struggled to keep herself up. She wouldn't have managed it at all, if Simon hadn't at some point grabbed onto her with his other arm. "Hey, it's okay. We're back inside now," he said.

Betty tentatively lifted her head back up and opened her eyes again. When she saw that they really were back in the castle she lowered her legs back down, then more or less collapsed, the floor reassuringly solid and present beneath her.

"Wow, you really don't like heights, do you?" Simon said, looking at her sitting on the floor, taking in shaky breaths.

"Five minutes ago I would have said I didn't have any problem with them," Betty said. She took in one last deep breath, then slowly let it out. Feeling mostly normal again, she stood back up. "I don't think it was the height, so much as not really having anything holding me up." After all, it wasn't the heights that had bothered her when flying on The Morrow.

"I was holding you up. I wouldn't let you fall," Simon said.

"I know you wouldn't," replied Betty, smiling at him. "But that doesn't make hanging that high up in the air any less viscerally terrifying."

"I guess we don't have to go flying," said Simon, kicking at the ground a little, and looking completely despondent.

"No, we're going to figure this out," Betty said. Honestly, it wasn't about Simon being upset so much as not wanting to leave it on that frankly rather embarrassing showing she had just given. But then, seeing how much Simon perked up when she said that didn't hurt either.

"Great! You'll see Betty, you're going to love flying. It's a lot of fun."

"So you keep telling me," Betty agreed. She hadn't really enjoyed flying on any of the occasions she'd done so before, but she was willing to concede to the possibility that it was really The Morrow that she didn't like, more so than the flying itself. It was worth testing anyway, especially with how excited Simon was. Of course she wouldn't be able to test it if she couldn't figure out a way to go flying with Simon without panicking the moment they got up in the air.

"Maybe if you were to carry me piggy-back style instead," Betty said thoughtfully.

"You think that'll work?" asked Simon.

"Probably? The problem isn't that I don't trust your ability to fly, it's that I don't trust my own, mostly because I can't actually fly on my own. And while I know intellectually you were holding me up just now, if you were carrying me on your back, then I'd be able to actually feel it too."

"Alright, well then hop on," Simon said, offering her his back. She climbed up and, once she was sure her grip was secure, she had him float up in the air a few feet. When that failed to produce the same sense of oddness that she had felt before, she gave him the okay to go outside, and again felt none of the alarm she'd felt she they'd been out here just a few minutes ago.

"It looks like this is going to be fine," Betty told him. "So what did you want to show me?"

"The Ice Kingdom!" Simon said, letting go of her with one hand so he could gesture expansively at the vista before them.

"You mean the place where I live? I have actually seen it before," Betty said with dry amusement.

"But not from the air," Simon replied, undeterred. "From up here it something really special." Upon saying that, he reached inside his robe and pulled out a cassette player, which he used for musical accompaniment as he sang a song about showing her something special.

Betty didn't think anything of it at first; it wasn't as though it was a particularly unusual behavior on his part. After covers of Marceline's songs, serenades to Betty were Simon's favorite things to sing. She gotten to the point where she could mostly just appreciate the sweetness of the gesture, while ignoring any romantic implications that Simon might be trying to make. But this time after the first verse of his song, he pulled out a second cassette player, this one with a recording of himself singing in an affected girl's voice, turning the song into a duet.

Betty giggled. So that was why he was so intent on her going flying with him. "Are you trying to A Whole New World me right now? Are you going to be my wings?"

"I don't know what that means," Simon said. "Why, is it working?"

"Not even a little bit," Betty answered good-naturedly.

"Would I help if I turned the music up?"

"Probably not." But of course, as far as Simon was concerned that wasn't a no, so he turned it up. Betty just smiled a little and leaned forward to rest her chin on his shoulder as she listened.

"So, what did you think?" Simon asked after the song was over.

"Well, Alan Menken you're not, but I think it was pretty good. A little short though," Betty told him. "And you know, I would have sung the girl part for you if you would have asked."

"Really? You would have sung it with me?" Simon asked.

"Sure. I mean, I'm not a great singer like Marceline or anything, but it would have been fun. And that way you wouldn't have had to record the girl part too," Betty said.

"Oh, I recorded that a long time ago," Simon said off-handedly. "I wanted to have it ready in case I had a good princess to share it with."

Betty gave him a funny look, though he probably couldn't see it from this angle. "Has anyone ever told you you're kind of crazy?" she asked him, her voice tinged with amusement.

"Pretty much all the time," Simon answered.

"Yeah, that would make sense," Betty agreed. She turned back to look out at the vast expanse of ice and snow around them, sparkling in the sun. "You were right, you know. The view from the Ice Kingdom really is something special from up here."

"See, I told you you'd love it, if you just gave it a chance."

* * *

There was one aspect to getting comfortable with flying that, while Betty hadn't been considering it when she agreed to the idea, was so convenient that it made her wonder if hadn't been a brilliant instinct on her part after all, rather than just a crazy adventurous whim that had happened to turn out well. Now that Betty was willing to let Simon fly her around, she could actually go places without having to walk everywhere. It was so much faster and it seemed a lot easier on Simon than all that walking was on her. Plus, while she didn't spend significantly more time socializing with her friends than she had before, she was now better able to be accommodating and come to them on occasion too.

Like today, which found her, and a slightly petulant Simon, having tea with Princess Bubblegum in the Candy Kingdom – the sugar smell really wasn't so bad anymore, now that she wasn't constantly putting up with it.

"So anyway, that managed to cure the candy people of their habit of exploding whenever they get too scared, but they still smoke a bit, so I'm afraid their insides might be getting cooked," Princess Bubblegum concluded.

"Well, I don't know that much about candy biomass, but I would think–" Simon sighed heavily, the third time in as many minutes, and Betty broke off what she was saying to look at him. "Is there a problem?"

"Yeah, you guys are being mondo boring," Simon answered. Betty did feel a little bad, since the only reason Simon was even here was because this was something Betty wanted to do, but he was still being pretty rude.

"You're welcome to leave," Betty said, intending it mostly as a gentle chastisement and confirmation that she and Bubblegum weren't going to completely drop their current topic of conversation just because he wasn't interested in it.

"Oh hey yeah, maybe I'll do that. I can go to Wizard City and catch up with all my magic homies," Simon said, clearly getting swept up in excitement about the idea. "Are you good to walk home, Betty, or do you need me to come pick you up later?"

Betty just blinked at him a few times, so surprised that she couldn't even find the words to respond to his question straightaway. Then Bubblegum jumped in and said, "I can give you a ride back on The Morrow if you like."

That definitely allowed Betty to find her voice, "No thanks, Bonnie." Betty might like flying now, but she still didn't trust that bird. Then she turned back to Simon and said, "If you could come pick me up, that'd be great. I'm not really sure when we'll be done here… maybe another hour or two?"

"Hey, don't sweat it, just give me a call when you're ready to go," Simon told her. "Alright sweetie, I'll see you later!" Then Simon waved good-bye and flew out the window.

Betty stared after him for a minute, until she had no choice to conclude that, yes, he had really gone. "That's never happened before," she said, still surprised by the turn of events.

"What, the Ice King leaving when someone asked him to? It's definitely happened, though usually not without a lot of yelling at him first," Princess Bubblegum said.

"No, not… well yes that, but not exactly," Betty said, finally turning away from the window and back to Bubblegum. "I meant this is the first time that he's let me out of his sight while outside the Ice Kingdom. A lot of times even when I'm just right outside the front of the castle he'll send Gunter or one of the other penguins to keep tabs on me." And yet now he'd just left her here in the Candy Kingdom without a worry in the world.

"I thought you said you weren't his prisoner anymore," Bubblegum objected.

"Technically I still am, but I don't really consider myself that way anymore. Either way, that's not what this is really about. I'm pretty sure he's just worried that I won't come back – or at least he was. I think he has abandonment issues," Betty said.

"Well maybe if he stopped kidnapping people, they wouldn't keep leaving him," Princess Bubblegum said dryly.

"He hasn't kidnapped anyone in months, not since I started to live there," Betty protested.

"He kidnapped you," Bubblegum pointed out.

"He didn't kidnap me, I volunteered," Betty corrected, but Princess Bubblegum seemed less than impressed by that distinction, so Betty changed the subject back to the problem of exploding candy people. Partially because Bubblegum did have a point, since while Betty hadn't been kidnapped, she had been held hostage and the reason she had even volunteered herself in the first place was because Simon had kidnapped Princess Bubblegum. But she also changed the subject because while Bonnie was probably her closest friend, aside from possibly Simon, she was also Betty's only friend that still called Simon exclusively by his Ice King title. Betty didn't begrudge her that, given what she knew of their history, but it didn't mean she had to particularly like it either.

Ah well, some arguments just weren't having. Simon was finally starting to trust her more than the doubts plaguing his mind and toady was a good day, so might as well enjoy it.


	7. Wherein Betty and Finn Discuss Happiness

"Man, I still can't believe Princess Bubblegum was the one to ruin that wedding," Simon remarked as he alighted on the floor in the entryway of the ice castle.

"It's not really all that surprising," Betty said as she got down off his back and went to grab the bathrobe she had left draped over the chair; her summery yellow dress was very nice and had been comfortably cool in the warm summer afternoon in the Grasslands, but it was a bit chilly for the Ice Kingdom. "I mean, PB has a lot of pride – most of it justified – and likes to be in control of things, and she doesn't handle it so well when she feels like she's being undermined."

Simon rubbed at his chin – well, his beard in the general area where his chin ought to be – thoughtfully. "I guess you're right about that. Still, I was sure it was going to be me who messed it up somehow."

"Of course not," said Betty. She set her second high heel down on the floor, then put her other slipper on and wiggled her toes a bit, enjoying the warmth and the comfort. Much better. "No, the smart money was on LSP crashing in a wedding dress. Which I'll remind you she did; she just got upstaged by Princess Bubblegum nearly crashing a zeppelin into the stage and then throwing everyone in prison. Thanks for getting us out of there, by the way." Right after Bubblegum had ordered all the wedding guests and staff thrown in prison, Simon had declared loudly that he was leaving, then picked Betty up and flew off with her, and Princess Bubblegum was smart enough not to argue with him. Betty felt a little bad about abandoning everyone else, but really the only way Bubblegum would be able to throw them all in prison, given that there were only a couple of Banana Guards there and they were guests too, would be if they all went along with it as a show of solidarity with Tree Trunks. And just to be sure, Betty would call Bubblegum up in about an hour or two, after she'd had time to cool off, and talk her down from this newest bit of crazy – Betty had gotten very good at dealing with insanity.

"I've spent way too much time in Candy Kingdom prison. I'm not going back there. I haven't even done anything wrong recently," Simon said. "You know, after today I'm thinking we shouldn't invite Lumpy Space Princess or Princess Bubblegum to our wedding."

"I don't think Princess Bubblegum would have caused any sort of problems if Tree Trunks had just let her officiate. She'd actually been doing a pretty good job as a wedding planner before she found out about that," Betty said, ignoring Simon's comment about the two of them getting married completely. She still corrected him or turned him down when she had to, but it was just easier on her to ignore it if she could. "And I'm pretty sure Lumpy Space Princess _wasn't_ invited to the wedding. Probably the only way to avoid her showing up is keeping the whole thing a secret from her until after the fact."

"Oh, you mean like eloping? How romantic!" Simon exclaimed.

Betty made a non-committal noise and changed the subject. "It's too bad that the wedding got broken up before the reception. That's my favorite part of these things." Especially in this case when she didn't know the bride and the groom all that well. Honestly, she hadn't even been entirely sure why she had been invited in the first place, and she might not have gone if Simon hadn't been so excited about it – technically he hadn't been invited, but Betty would contend that if they hadn't wanted him to come, then they really shouldn't have given her a plus one; who else was she going to bring with her? It wasn't until after she arrived at the wedding that Betty discovered that Tree Trunks was laboring under the misapprehension that Betty was Finn's biological mother who had given him up for adoption when he was a baby and was now trying to reconnect with him. And nothing Betty or Finn had to say to her could convince her otherwise, all of it being chalked up to guilt or teenage rebellion, respectively. In fairness to Tree Trunks, it wasn't an unreasonable assumption, Betty just wished she would have listened to them when they told her it wasn't true, _repeatedly_.

"Well why don't we have our own reception right here?" Simon suggested.

"Because Tree Trunks and Mr. Pig are in prison right now, and without a newly-wed couple to receive the guests it's not a wedding reception, just a party," Betty pointed out.

"Then let's have a party," Simon said, undeterred. "We could invite Finn and Jake – no wait, they're still in prison. Well we could invite a bunch of the princesses, like Princess Bubblegum and Breakfast Princess and Wildberry Princess, and Lumpy Space Princess is always down to party – wait, Lumpy Space Princess is in prison too."

"And PB is the one who threw everyone in prison in the first place, so I doubt she'll be in much of a party mood," Betty added.

"Alright, then we'll just invite Gunter and all his pals," Simon said.

"So basically we're talking about you, me, and the penguins dancing around in the living room," Betty said. Then she shrugged. "Sure, why not." It wouldn't be the same as an evening socializing, which Betty did enjoy from time to time and hadn't had much of an opportunity to do lately – she'd gotten better at penguin charades, but she still couldn't understand anything that they were actually saying – but she had been looking forward to some dancing, so she could get that in at least.

Simon asked Betty to go round up the penguins while he put on some music, then when Betty got back she had to convince Simon that the lot of them just randomly dancing around wasn't the sort of thing he needed to tape, but it wasn't too long before they were having their little party. They had gotten through about ten songs, by which time Betty was feeling warm enough from dancing around that she had taken her bathrobe off again, though the slippers stayed, when a slow song came on. Which seemed like a remarkable show of restraint on Simon's part to Betty, since it was about nine songs more than she had expected it to take. She thought that was probably why she said yes when he asked her to dance.

"But just one dance. Then I need to go… and get together some snacks for our party," Betty insisted. Really she should have just said no, because she didn't like encouraging him when she knew she wouldn't, couldn't, marry him, but she didn't like saying no to him all the time either. It was just one little dance, and she'd slow danced with friends before. It would be fine.

Betty was a little surprised when, instead of what she thought of as the normal slow dance hold – the woman's arms around the man's neck with the man's arms on the woman's hips – Simon guided her left hand to his right shoulder, placing his hand on her shoulder blade, then clasped her right hand in his left and held them up in the air. "Are we going to waltz?" she asked him. She was pretty sure this was the correct arm configuration for a waltz, and Simon had pulled enough hidden skills and talents out by now that she was no longer surprised by them.

"Don't be silly. You can't waltz to a song in four-four time," Simon said.

"I'm not sure what that means, but if you say so. I trust you," Betty said as she followed his lead in a simple, swaying and spinning kind of dance. Dancing like this meant that there wasn't much anywhere for Betty to look except at Simon's face, and as she looked at him she found herself starting to wonder.

Despite the fact that Betty spent what was probably the majority of her waking hours researching curses – what the different kinds were, how they worked, how they were cast, how they were broken – she didn't like to think about why she was doing it all that often. Simon was obnoxious and childish and mercurial, yes, but he was also caring and creative and fun and Betty just took all of that, the bad with the good, as who Simon was. But it wasn't who he was, not exactly, because Simon was under a curse, the nature of which she knew very little about beyond the fact that it had changed him. And thinking about that hurt, and what's more, it frightened her.

It hurt because Simon was her friend and something horrible had happened to him and Betty was the only one who could help him and yet she kept falling short of figuring out how. And all that bad that Betty was just taking with the good as a matter of course, how much of that wasn't even really real, just something that had been forced upon him? Because Betty saw how much Marceline cared about him and worried over him and hoped for him. Then there were Finn, Jake, and Lady Rainicorn, all of whom had expressed a dislike for the Ice King before Betty had ever met him, and while Betty was certain that most of their politeness now was only for her sake, sometimes she caught a glimpse of something in the back of their eyes when they were looking at him, something a lot like pity or even sorrow. And didn't that all suggest that before he was cursed, and even now waiting inside of Simon, there was a better version of himself that existed?

That's what frightened Betty, because Simon was her friend, just as he was now, and she didn't know that she wanted a better version of him. Sure, he was far from perfect and she could imagine that there were ways that removing the curse might change him for the better. But she could imagine so many different ways that it wouldn't. What if when she broke the curse he regained his ability to be logical and rational, but at the expense of his creativity and spontaneity; what if he became someone intelligent and kind and so dreadfully dull? What if he pieced back the scattered bits of his brain to become one of the greatest minds the world had ever seen, but in his arrogance lost his way of being sweet, so he was only self-centered and cruel all the time? What if he became just as great and amazing as Betty knew it was in him to be, but stopped having any interest in Betty as a friend and started treating her with a distant sort of politeness? What if a thousand of other things that could go terribly wrong? Betty had already lost so much, her family, her friends and the life she had had before coming to Ooo, her entire world, all gone in the blink of an eye. She couldn't lose Simon too. But she couldn't be the one keeping him from becoming all he was meant to be either.

"What are you thinking about?" Simon asked her, and Betty was surprised to find herself near tears.

"I'm thinking you're my best friend. And I'm thinking that it would be selfish of me not to want what's best for you, no matter what I want. And I'm thinking that you… that I feel…" Betty bit her lip, struggling to find a way to take all that was inside her at that moment and form it into words.

"Sorry, I'm not interrupting am I?"

"Finn," Betty said, letting go of Simon and turning around to look at their guest. "No it's fine, the song was just ending anyway." She tried to ignore the fact that the song ending was almost certainly not the same one that had been playing when she told Simon that they'd be having just one dance. "What brings you here? Actually, how did you get here, did Princess Bubblegum not end up throwing you all in prison after all?"

"Oh, PB definitely threw us all in jail, but then the King of Ooo gave Tree Trunks the power to conduct her own ceremony and I guess it moved the princess so much that she was willing to let us out again. Anyway, after that we all decided to go to the reception, though Tree Trunks and Mr. Pig haven't shown up yet, and I wanted to come let you guys know in case you wanted to come too," Finn said.

"Thank you, Finn; I was actually just saying that it was a shame we had to miss out on the reception. I hope you didn't walk all the way out here just for that, though." She assumed that if Jake or Lady had brought him, they would have come in as well, but on the other hand, Betty couldn't see how he would have had the time to get taken to the Candy Kingdom, thrown in jail, released, and then walk all the way out here.

"Nah, Jake Junior teleported me here, but I told her I would get back myself and she teleported back to the reception," Finn said. "Also I may have thrown up outside your front door."

"Gross," Simon said.

"Simon," Betty chastised – though he wasn't wrong – then she turned back to Finn. "Are you feeling better now?"

"Yeah I'm good. It turns out teleportation is just no good for my tummy," Finn said patting at his stomach.

"Well I'm sure we can give you a ride back. Simon, do you think you can manage carrying me and having Finn hold on to your arm or something and helping him to fly?" Betty asked.

"Yeah, sure, why not? But first, Gunter, sweetie, could you go clean up the mess Finn made?" Simon said.

"Wenk," replied Gunter.

"Because I asked you to do it," said Simon.

"I could make up a big fish fry for dinner tomorrow night," Betty added, and suddenly all the penguins were scrambling to go get the cleaning supplies. "Oh and someone please get Finn a glass of water too!"

"I think they like you better than me," Simon said, pouting.

"They just like that I bribe them," Betty said. "Alright, just let me get my shoes back on and we'll get you that glass of water Finn, then we'll be ready to go."

"Wait, I need to go powder my nose first too. I don't want it to be all shiny at the party," Simon said, heading off toward the restroom.

"Simon you do know that 'powdering your nose' is supposed to be a euphemism; it's not something that people actually do, right? Simon?" But he was already gone. Betty laughed a little and shook her head at him then went to go grab her shoes still sitting over by the chair.

"Hey Betty?" Finn said a bit hesitantly and she looked up at him from her shoes. "I was wondering if you and the Ice King, I mean Simon, are you guys, well… are you happy?"

That was a bit of an odd question. That is, not odd exactly, but kind of out of nowhere. "I would say that yes, I'm generally pretty happy." There was still the issue of Simon's curse and all the baggage that entailed weighing on her mind, but since she avoided thinking about that most of the time it didn't have too much effect on her day-to-day happiness. "And I haven't ever directly asked Simon about it, but I think he's happy too."

"Good. Because I mean, it's not like you ever seemed sad or anything before, but I guess now that I think about it you do seem happier now that you're here and together with Simon. You are, right?"

"Yes," Betty repeated. "Why are you asking about all this? Is something wrong?"

"No, it's all fine!" Finn rushed to assure her, which made Betty suspect that there really must be something wrong. "I was just wondering about it because of earlier. But, hey, you're my friend, so you deserve to be happy. And Ice King has done some pretty messed up stuff, you know, but Simon has had some pretty messed up stuff happen to him too. I promised Marceline I wouldn't tell you what or else she said she'd suck out all my blood for real, but yeah, it was bad. So it's good he can be happy now. Because not being happy bites donkey butts." Most of it was said in the slightly awkward, but still upbeat tone that Betty normally expected from Finn, but at the end he took a turn to the morose, kicking at the ground almost absently.

Oh Finn. "I'm sure things with Flame Princess will end up working out, one way or another." Betty had thought he was mostly past this by now, but she guessed it wasn't that strange that going to a wedding and seeing another happy couple joining together might stir up old feelings. And how very sweet and like Finn it was for his impulse when he was feeling unhappy to be to check in with his friends and make sure that they, at least, were happy.

"Really? You think we'll get back together?" Finn asked, clearly very excited.

"Maybe," Betty prevaricated. It certainly wasn't impossible, but that wasn't the most likely outcome after a messy break-up, at least not in Betty's experience. "The thing about happiness is, while it's good to have an idea of the things you want and to try and go after them, a lot of times happiness ends up coming in the shape and way it wants to, regardless of what you think about the matter. If you had asked me a year ago what I wanted out of life, I wouldn't have come up with anything like where I'm at now, but that doesn't mean I'm any less happy. So maybe the two of you will get back together, or maybe you won't, and instead you'll find someone new who makes you just as happy. Happier even."

"I'd like it better if we got back together," Finn said, lightly belligerent.

Betty sighed, then walked over so she could scruff Finn on top of his hat. "I know you would. Just… try to be open to whatever life brings you, okay?"

"I'm ready," Simon announced, coming back in the room with a thick layer of powder caked on his nose. "How do I look?"

"Ridiculous," Betty told him. She glanced around the room and then grabbed her bathrobe up again and used it to wipe all the gunk off his face. "There, now you're ready."

"Alright," Simon said, apparently completely unconcerned that Betty had just undone all his work. "This party better watch out because there is a hot silver fox coming their way."

It was more of the same the exuberant nonsense that Simon was always spouting off, which usually Betty found endearing and amusing, if occasionally somewhat annoying. But this time she just frowned at him thoughtfully. She really hadn't ever asked Simon if he was happy, had she? But just look at him, it's not like he was making any effort whatsoever to hide what he was feeling, so Betty would have noticed it by now if he was unhappy. Wouldn't she?

"Simon, are you happy?" Betty asked.

"Of course I'm happy," he said easily. "You and me are about to go party it up with my best homies. Why wouldn't I be happy?"

Because for centuries now he'd been living under a curse so horrible that even people who had been known to describe him as evil felt sorry for him and worried about his happiness and he continued to suffer under it because Betty couldn't seem to manage to break it. "I don't know why you wouldn't be; I'm just glad that you are."

* * *

AN: Beta'd by PraireDawn


	8. Wherein Betty Breaks a Promise

AN: Full chapter title is Wherein Betty Breaks a Promise and Finds Herself

* * *

Betty began stacking up the dinner dishes and was pleased to note that once again Simon had completely cleaned his plate. He'd gained a fair amount of weight since Betty had moved in and while he was still extremely skinny, he wasn't completely emaciated anymore. He complained from time to time about how she had totally ruined his diet, but she took that mostly as good-natured grumbling. All in all he seemed to have taken Betty's comments about him looking better like this to heart.

"I'm pretty sure it's my turn to wash tonight," Betty said and then headed for the kitchen, trying to ignore the way Simon was scowling at her.

"You didn't answer my question," Simon said.

Betty ignored that too, setting her dishes down and starting to fill the sink up with water. She cast about for something to distract Simon with and finally said in a forced bright tone, "I was talking to Marceline yesterday and she–"

"Betty. Answer my question," Simon demanded.

She closed her eyes briefly and let out a long sigh. She turned off the sink – the dishes would have to wait until later – then turned to face Simon head on and look him directly in the eye. "No, I will not marry you. Now _please_ , stop asking."

"Why not?" Simon asked, for all the world sounding like a petulant child deprived of dessert rather than someone who had had his marriage proposal turned down. And that in itself should have answered his question right there.

"Does it matter why? I've told you the answer is no and it's always going to be no. That should be enough," Betty said.

"Well it's not. Why don't you love me?"

"I do care about you," Betty insisted. "You're my friend and I like spending time with you and living here with you. You're important to me, which is why it hurts so much to keep telling you no all the time."

"Well I know how to fix that, just say yes. That way I won't have to ask you again either!" Simon said as if it were just that easy. Betty wished it was.

"I _can't_ ," she said.

"Sure you can. Just say 'Wow Simon, you're so good-looking and super cool. I totally want to marry you,'" Simon said in a ridiculous falsetto.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Betty said.

"No, I don't know what you meant. Because you keep saying you can't marry me and you won't marry me, but you never tell me why," said Simon.

"Because it wouldn't matter if I did tell you," Betty shouted. Even if she could manage to find a way to put words to why she couldn't marry him, there was no way he'd understand what she was trying to tell him. And if he did somehow understand, he wouldn't remember it the next day. If he even cared at all.

"Of course it would matter," Simon said. "If I knew what was wrong then I could fix it and then we could get married."

"I just… I can't do this," Betty said, and she turned around and walked out.

"Wait, where are you going?" Simon protested as he chased after her. "You can't leave."

Betty wondered what he would do if she tried. If she walked out right now would Simon follow her out into the night and try to stop her? Would he freeze her again and throw her back in a prison cell? Or would he let her go and forget she had ever been here in the first place?

Betty went to her room, Simon trailing her the whole way. "Come on Betty, let's talk about this."

She turned around just inside the doorway and looked at him. "Okay, let's talk. Why do you want to marry me?"

"What?" Simon said, clearly not having expected that.

"You want to know why I won't marry you, but you've asked me to as many times as I've said no" – more even, since Betty hadn't always answered him explicitly – "so first I want to know why you want to marry me." No matter what he said it wouldn't really make a difference; Betty couldn't marry him. But his answer still mattered, a lot more than Betty had ever realized before she had spoken the question out loud.

"Because you're my princess," Simon said.

Betty felt her heart drop somewhere down into her stomach. "I am not a princess," she snapped, then slammed the door shut in his face. She turned around and, with her back pressed against the door, slowly slid to the floor. She drew her legs up and hung her head down toward her knees, ignoring Simon as he continued to try and talk to her through the door. That had probably been just about the answer she had been expecting, but she had hoped… she didn't even know what she had been hoping for. Glob this was all so stupid. Why did it even matter to her anyway?

She wasn't sure how long Simon stayed on the other side of the door or how long she sat there after he left. Eventually she made herself get up, if only to put on some pajamas and crawl into bed; she really wasn't up for doing anything else tonight.

But laying there staring at the ceiling made it pretty quickly apparent she wasn't really calm enough yet to go to sleep either. She sighed, then reached over to pick up her phone. Maybe talking about it with someone would help. She spent a few minutes scrolling through her contacts and wishing that she knew how to speak Korean before finally settling on Princess Bubblegum. She was tempted a little bit to call Marceline instead, since Marceline understood what it was like to care about Simon and understood Simon himself probably better than anybody, even Betty. And Betty knew that this situation was about being understanding, not about right or wrong or being on anybody's side, but… she really needed someone who was on her side right now.

"Hey Betty. What's happening?"

"Simon asked me to marry him," Betty said, the words tumbling from her lips without any prior permission from her brain.

"Uh, not to undermine your big news, but how exactly is this news? Doesn't he ask you to marry him like ten times a day? Unless you said yes this time."

"No," Betty replied firmly. "I said no, then I told him that he needed to stop asking. We fought about it."

"Oh, sorry. That donks," Bubblegum said. "You know I've done some research on relationships. Most of it was more focused on hormones and stuff, but some of it had a psychological bent with a focus on communication. I could send those papers to you, if you want."

"No thanks," Betty said. It was a thoughtful gesture, but she doubted PB had done anything on how to impress upon your best friend with a loose grip on reality to stop proposing to you.

"Yeah," Princess Bubblegum said with a sigh. "They didn't help me much either."

"I just wanted to talk for a little while. If you're not busy," Betty said.

"Sure, I can talk. But you should probably know that I'm not the best person to go to for advice on this stuff. My last relationship ended badly. I'm talking screaming, crying, throwing things – _I_ didn't throw anything, but things were definitely thrown – and saying we never wanted to see each other again. Although we have actually been seeing other again lately – not romantically because that would be crazy, right? Right, definitely a bad idea, shouldn't even be thinking about it. But we've been seeing each other just, you know, around and stuff, and I'm starting to think. But that's my thing; let's talk about your thing," Princess Bubblegum said hastily in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

It worked though, if for no other reason than talking about her thing was the reason Betty had called in the first place. "You're right that he asks me to marry him a lot. Not all the time, but at least once a day. And I try not to let it upset me because he's crazy. I don't mean that as an insult, I just mean that he is legitimately mentally unbalanced and he can't always help the things he does. So it's really not his fault, and I know that.

"But it's not fair. It's not fair that I have to always be the bigger person and be understanding and not get upset when he can ask me the same question over and over and over again and get upset at me for saying no even though he should know that's what my answer is going to be by now. I don't like hurting him and I don't want to hurt him, but I can't say yes, so what else am I supposed to do? He doesn't even really want to marry me. I mean, I know he likes me, but he just wants to marry any princess, or any woman even, and I'm just the most obvious choice right now. If I were to suddenly disappear tomorrow, he'd go right back to kidnapping you and probably forget I ever existed."

"Wait a second, I'm confused," Princess Bubblegum said. "Are you upset because he keeps asking you to marry him and you don't want to, or are you upset because you do want to marry him, but you can't because you don't think he wants to marry you?"

"I don't want marry him," Betty said, but the words came out small and uncertain.

"Oh, okay," Princess Bubblegum said.

"Okay?" Betty repeated. It wasn't that she wanted Bubblegum to challenge her on it, but her declaration hadn't sounded all that convincing even to her.

"Yeah, okay. People who try and tell you how you feel are the worst. Especially when they turn out to be right after all," Princess Bubblegum said, muttering the last part darkly.

"I do not want to marry him," Betty repeated, forcing her voice to sound firm and confident this time even if she still didn't feel it. "I mean, this is still the Ice King we're talking about."

"Yeah, I know who we're talking about; I am listening. I mean, I know sometimes I work while I'm talking on the phone, but I only do that because I know I can multi-task, and I'm not working right now anyway. Well." Princess Bubblegum paused and then there were some faint noises in the background punctuated by the sound of a notebook slamming shut. "Okay, now I'm not working right now. And I have definitely been paying attention and know we're talking about the Ice King. Although, can we go back to calling him Simon? If I'm being totally honest the fact that the two of you are dating really weirds me out and calling him Simon helps me keep from putting up a mental block about it."

"What?" Betty said, startled almost completely out of the mood she had fallen into. "We are not dating. Who told you that? Simon?"

"No," Princess Bubblegum said. "I mean, yeah he did, a lot, but I'm not going to take his word for it. No, Finn told me; he said that you told him."

"I definitely never told Finn anything like that, because it isn't true. Where would he have even gotten that idea from?" Betty asked.

"Huh. What I heard was that at Tree Trunks and Mr. Pig's wedding you, Finn, and TT were all talking while she was getting ready and Tree Trunks said something about Simon being your boyfriend and you didn't deny it. Then I guess Finn and Jake got into an argument about it later because Jake thought you hadn't said anything because it was true and you and Simon really were dating, but Finn thought there must be some other reason for it. So Finn went out to see you and asked you about it and he said that you confirmed it."

This thread of conversation just got more and more confusing as it went. "I don't know why he would. Yes, I do remember Tree Trunks saying something about Simon being my 'new beau' but at that point both Finn and I had been trying for 15 minutes to convince her that I wasn't Finn's mother without any success and it really didn't seem worth the effort of arguing with her. But Finn never… oh, wait," Betty said, suddenly recalling the private conversation the two of them had had while waiting on Simon to powder his nose, where Finn had awkwardly asked after her and Simon's happiness. "I guess maybe he did ask me, but he wasn't very clear about it or I misunderstood."

"So you're sure you aren't dating, then? Because a lot of the princesses were pretty excited since we figured that if the two of you were officially an item, then Simon might be done with kidnapping the rest of us for good."

"Yes I'm sure," Betty said firmly. "And what do you mean, a lot of the princesses? How many people think we're dating?"

"I don't know for certain, but Lumpy Space Princess has probably told just about everyone by now," Bubblegum replied.

"Great," Betty said with a sigh. "I guess I don't care what anyone else thinks about it really – most everyone was already judging me for being friends with him anyway – but Simon is already well convinced enough on his own that we're dating. I don't need anybody encouraging that impression, not when it can't happen."

"It can't happen," Bubblegum echoed.

"Yes, that's what I said," Betty agreed.

"It's _exactly_ what you said. I wrote this paper..." Betty could hear the sounds of Princess Bubblegum rummaging around in the background and after a minute she let out an annoyed huff. "Well I can't remember exactly where I put it right now, but it was one of the ones about communication. Specifically it was about the importance of exact word choice. My point being that you didn't say you _won't_ date Simon, you said you _can't_ date him. Why?"

"He's crazy," Betty said. But the words sounded hollow to her ears. Of course Simon was crazy, everyone knew he was crazy. Yet here she was.

"Mmmmm," Bubblegum said non-committedly.

"And even if I did… it wouldn't matter because none of this is _real_. He's crazy right now, but someday, someday soon" – it had to be soon because Betty didn't know if she could do this much longer – "he won't be anymore. And I don't know who he'll be when that happens."

"No one can predict the future, not outside of Cosmic Owl dreams. Believe me, I've tried. And throwing something away today because you might not have it tomorrow doesn't make a whole bunch of sense."

Betty closed her eyes and took a deep shaky breath. "You were supposed to be on my side."

"I am on your side. I want you to be happy. And you told Finn you were happy, right? He didn't misunderstand that? Plus when you were talking about turning down Simon's proposal for the millionth time earlier, it sounded like you were going to cry," Princess Bubblegum said.

"I don't want to marry him," Betty said for the third time and this time she really was crying, just a bit.

"I'm not saying you do. Look, if you want my advice on relationships the only thing I can tell you is that if you treat people like you don't want them around they'll believe it. And then they leave and you're left all alone. And being alone sucks. It really, really sucks, and you don't want to spend any time dealing with it."

"Life is too short," Betty suggested.

"Life is too long," Princess Bubblegum corrected. "It just goes on forever and you don't want to be alone for all that. I'm not saying you need to be married or be dating someone or anything like that, but you need someone. Because being alone for all that time, for a thousand years? I wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even the Ice King." Betty tried to stop herself, but as soon as PB had said it, that was all Betty could picture: Simon wandering the empty halls in his ice palace all alone, century after century.

She bit down hard and tried to hold back a sob. Once Betty was sure it wasn't about to escape her the instant she opened her mouth, she told Princess Bubblegum, "I think I need to go."

"Yeah, okay," Bubblegum said. "Are you going to be okay though? Did this help at all?"

"I don't know," Betty replied honestly.

"I get that; relationship biz is tough. I'm sure it will all work out though. I'll talk to you later."

Betty made a vague noise that Bubblegum would hopefully take as a goodbye, then hung up the phone and threw it on the bedside table. She turned over onto her side and grabbed a pillow, curling herself up around it. Then, burying her face into the pillow to muffle the sobs so Simon wouldn't hear them and burst in trying to figure out what was wrong, Betty cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Betty woke up the next morning feeling every last one of her one thousand and forty-one years. There was a part of her that just wanted to lie there in bed all day, but she forced herself to get up and get ready. There was nothing to be gained from hiding.

To that end she asked the first penguin she saw after she left her room where Simon was. The odds of Simon still being upset about last night or even remembering it were slim at best, but Betty would rather get her own awkwardness about the whole thing dealt with and out of the way as quickly as possible.

"Wenkwenkwenk, wenk wenk," the penguin – he was the one that Betty typically called Goonter, though Simon still just seemed to use whatever name struck his fancy at the moment – said, flapping his wings a bit, but not pointing them in any particular direction.

"Is he home?" Betty asked instead, not having been able to divine any information from Goonter's previous answer and he shook his head.

"Oh okay, thanks," Betty said and she tried not to feel relieved. She guessed she would go get some breakfast first then, and maybe deal with the dishes she'd left in the sink last night. But when she got to the kitchen, the sink was empty. Simon must have come back last night after their fight and done them for her. For the she didn't-know-how-many-th time in less than twenty-four hours, Betty felt a prickle of tears at the corners of her eyes.

She clamped her eyes shut and forced herself to shake it off. Enough of this. This wasn't her, soft and weeping and bemoaning her circumstance. If she wasn't happy with the way things were, then she would do something about it, not sit in a corner crying.

So what was there to do? Break Simon's curse, of course, that was the main thing. Once she could do that, everything else should sort itself out one way or another. And if it wasn't in the way she wished it, well, at least it would be done and she could move forward. The problem was that if breaking Simon's curse was as easy as all that, she would have done it already. But she had spent months working on it and still not found an answer. Months reading every bit of information on curses she could get her hands on, months keeping a close eye on Simon's behavior and the behavior of the people around him, months combing through every room in the castle, all searching for some sort of answer. Well, not _every_ room.

Even as time passed and her curiosity grew, Betty had continued to honor Simon's request that she not look in his The Past Room. He was so open about everything else, he certainly had a right to one room to keep private. But of everything Betty could think of, that room was the one most likely to have some sort of clue to breaking Simon's curse. So if she was going to violate his trust in her, and it was a violation no matter what justification Betty wanted to use to dress it up, then at least she would be doing it for his sake, not to satisfy her own desire to know. She even thought that if this did work, then he'd probably forgive her for nosing around where she wasn't supposed to. And if he didn't… well as long as she still managed to break the curse Betty would find a way to be okay with that.

Best do it now, while Simon was out. Betty grabbed something quick to eat, then headed down into the depths of the castle. It was a path that she took most every day to get to the library, but today her steps felt heavy and ominous. When she reached the room she allowed herself a few moments hesitation before reaching for the thick black curtain Simon had hung to block the room from view and pulling it back.

Revealing a room full of junk looking more like someone's basement or garage than a mysterious shrine to the past. There was a mish-mash of things from the potentially useful, like the old record player with a collection of records or the surfboard – she didn't know Simon knew how to surf. But maybe he didn't and that's why this thing was down here – to the plain bizarre, like the stop sign that looked like someone had taken a bite out of it to the – was that a missile head? Betty started digging around in some of the boxes, but didn't find anything of particular interest in the first one or the second one. The third one was full of more clothes, an assortment of toiletries, a boom box cassette player for some reason, and one other thing. A pair of wire frame glasses with big round lenses. They must be the glasses that Simon and Marceline had both mentioned, the ones that Simon had worn back when he was a nerd, back before the curse. Betty stared at them for a moment, then slipped them in her jacket pocket. Simon would probably want them again once Betty had broken his curse, so she would have them ready for him.

Betty looked through a few more boxes, but failed to find anything else, so she turned to the roll top desk lying on its side. It took a bit of effort, but she managed to right it by herself, then she began looking through all the things that had presumably been sitting on top of the desk when it had been knocked over. Mostly it was just scrolls and books of the same nature as the ones in her library, but there were also a number of loose leaf pages and photos and the like that looked like they had maybe been torn out of a book at some point.

One such caught her eye, a newspaper clipping that Simon had apparently scribbled song lyrics all over, but that's not what interested Betty. What interested her was the picture of a man with the article. He looked to be about Betty's age, less the thousand years she had spent frozen, had dark hair and dark eyes and olive toned skin, though the last was hard to be certain of in the black and white picture. He also looked hauntingly familiar. But of course he did, those glasses he was wearing were the same ones Betty had in her pocket and, though she wouldn't swear to it, she thought the suit he was wearing was the same one she had found in her library. Simon's glasses and Simon's suit, so this _had_ to be Simon. Simon Petrikov. An archeologist.

An archeologist who actually went out and did things and made discoveries, not one who sat around back home – not that there was anything wrong with that, the former just seemed more likely to be interesting, less boring. There was a quote from him in the article about the discovery he'd made and he seemed well-spoken and kind. Not at all conceited. And then he just looked excited, like he was the kind of person who got out and enjoyed life. Betty thought…

No. Stop it. It was only a picture and only a newspaper article that she could barely even read for all the scribbles on it. She was just making fantasies about what she wished to be true, not what she actually had a solid basis for believing. Focus.

Simon had been an archeologist, so maybe that was the key to what happened to him. He had gone out on an expedition and stumbled across some sort of cursed object that had… oh. Of course. Betty didn't know why she hadn't put it together before. Okay, if she knew, or at least was fairly certain, that it was the crown that had cursed him, then that gave her a good place to go from. What else might she be able to find out here then?

Her digging through the debris had unearthed a book with "Scrapbook" in gold calligraphy on the front, which certainly sounded promising. She picked it up and when she did a page slipped out of it and fluttered to the ground, landing upside down. So she went to pick that up as well, flipping it over to look at as she did.

Oh. Betty felt her knees buckle beneath her, and she slid gracelessly to the floor. Oh. This was. Despite her earlier resolve, the words on the page began to swim and dance before her as her eyes filled up with unshed tears. But that was alright; she didn't need to be able to read it. Betty had spent hours writing this letter, trying to make it perfect. Even now she could remember what it said, almost word for word. Betty could remember _everything_.

* * *

Beta'd by PrairieDawn


	9. Wherein There is a Change of Perspective

Simon woke up feeling dazed and confused. Yet at the same time his head felt clearer than it had in centuries. Clear enough to know that whatever was going on right now he did not want to be hanging around for it. He wondered as he stumbled his way outside if he hadn't woken up at all, but fallen asleep, and this was all merely a dream that had decided to grant him with the temporary restoration of his sanity. But once he'd made his way outside, he tripped and fell to the ground and there the painful throbbing of his bare foot and the sharp stinging of his hands against the pavement and the biting cold of the rain soaking his clothes and skin all gave lie to that possibility. He was most certainly awake.

"This must be it, man. I've crossed over into some new super insane zone where I feel like I'm just normal again," Simon theorized out loud, but that didn't feel right either. And come to think of it that big hairy guy he'd passed on the way up here – the Grand Master Wizard, right, the hazy recollections were starting to filter in now – hadn't he been saying something about a creature of anti-magic? Simon pulled his crown off to find it dull and the gems in it faded. And when he looked at his reflection in the puddle in front of him, Simon looked like himself again, or at least he thought he did; his vision was a little blurry without his glasses. "Or maybe I'm just normal again."

Simon gazed at himself, truly himself, in the puddle for a moment longer before he was interrupted.

"Hey, stop looking at yourself. You're ugly, bro. Get lost. This is my busking spot."

Simon felt a little bad about punching that dingus's lights out and stealing his carpet, if for no other reason than he had startled Simon out of his self-contemplation and reminded him there were more important things to attend to. On the other hand, Simon was in a rush so he really did need the use of the guy's carpet, plus if he hadn't been such a dingus, Simon might have tried asking to borrow it before resorting to violence.

The carpet moved quickly and his destination wasn't that far away, but the journey was still long enough to give him time to think and realize something: he was dying. With the magic ripped from the crown the way it had been he might not be crazy any more, but he also didn't have anything sustaining him so far past his usual lifespan. So now it wasn't just a race against time to make sure he said what he needed to before something could happen to restore the magic to the crown and himself to his cursed state, it was also a race against his own mortality. He could only hope that, after he did what needed to be done, Death came for him before the Ice King did.

Not long after he had that grim thought Simon arrived at his destination: a charming little house with the sound of voices and music pouring out of it, incongruently located in the middle of a damp, smelly cave. Feeling a bit apprehensive – he thought Marceline had been on better terms with him lately, but it was hard to be sure of anything that happened while he was the Ice King – Simon walked up and knocked on the front door. He wished he would have had time to change into normal clothes and unearth his glasses first, but it had seemed silly to waste all that time going out to the Ice Kingdom just for that, especially when Marceline had seen him in far worse states than this.

Marceline staggered a bit when she opened the door and saw him there, and she had to lean on the frame a bit to catch her balance. "I didn't mean to startle you," Simon said wryly.

"Simon?"

"Marceline," he replied, giving her a warm smile and holding his arms open. Marceline fell into them and he wrapped her up in a tight hug. Even when the hug was over, Simon couldn't quite bring himself to let go of her right away, holding his hands on her shoulders. "Just look at you; you're all grown up. I can hardly believe it."

"Believe!" Simon tried to peer around Marceline, and she ended up taking a few steps back so he could come inside and see Jake, as well as Finn. "She's like a million years old."

"One million years? How could it be?" Simon said, his eyes going wide. He knew it had been a long time, but one million years?

"He's just kidding. I'm only a thousand," Marceline said.

"And still looking good!" Jake added.

"Hey Simon, where's Betty?" Marceline asked, looking out the still open door. "She broke your curse and that's why you're here, right?"

"The curse didn't break; it was removed by the presence of an anti-magic creature," Simon corrected absently as he tried to sort out the rest of Marceline's statement. "But what are you talking about, Betty? The only Betty I know must have died, well, a thousand years ago."

"Man, I think your brain's still broken," Jake said. "Betty was born a thousand years ago. Or like, a thousand plus, I don't know, thirty-something? Then she got mysteriously transported to the present day and she's been living with you for a while now. Don't you remember?"

"I don't remember much of anything specific from being the Ice King. Just dreamlike impressions."

"Do you still have impressions from all the times we flipped your bricks?" Finn asked.

"Finn! Not the time," Marceline screeched, her face going briefly monstrous – huh, was that new? – before turning back to Simon. "You have impressions of Betty, right? I mean, you guys have been spending so much time together, you couldn't have forgotten all about her."

"Of course I have impressions of Betty," Simon assured her. Betty was the central thing that had made being the Ice King almost bearable recently. "But I thought she was an especially persistent delusion I was having. It certainly seemed a more likely possibility than the alternative."

Marceline let out a wooshing breath and visibly relaxed. "No, she's not a delusion; she's real. Jeez Simon, you had me worried than something serious had got messed up in your head for good."

"I'm sorry for scaring you, darling. I just can't believe… I think I need to sit down for a minute." Simon crossed over to the couch and sat down heavily. Then he looked back up at Marceline and said, "Marcy, this couch is terrible."

"Yeah, I know," Marceline replied, shutting the door and floating over. "I mostly just hover above it, so it doesn't really bother me. But maybe we could go out sometime and you could help me pick out a new one?"

Simon started to tell her that he seriously doubted he'd been around long enough to do that, but then he hesitated. It probably wasn't fair of him to hide what was happening to him from Marceline, but at the same time she seemed so happy right now and, fair or no, Simon didn't think he could take that away from her. "I'd like that," he said instead. And he would have, if he had ever gotten the chance.

He scooted forward in his seat until he could slide down off the couch and onto the floor. "Much better," he declared as Marceline, Finn, and Jake came to sit on the ground with him. "So all that stuff with Betty was really real. And she's really here. The Betty," Simon said, still having a hard time believing it.

Marceline laughed a bit. "Yeah Simon, it was real."

"Wait a second, _the_ Betty?" Jake repeated. "Did you know Betty from before or something?"

"I did," Simon confirmed. "You ought to remember Marceline; you made me tell you the story enough."

"Oh my Glob. Simon, Betty is Betty! Like from the letter! I knew I recognized her name," Marceline crowed.

"Hold up, what letter, what story? I want to hear the story," Finn said.

"Yeah, story time!" Jake agreed.

"I don't know," Simon began, but he stopped when he saw Marceline looking at him just as expectantly as Finn and Jake. Simon might be dying right now, but it was only in increments. He had enough time to get back to the Ice Kingdom to tell Betty goodbye and still tell these guys a story first. For Marceline, if that's what she wanted. "Well, alright.

"Our story starts with a dashing archeologist – think Indiana Jones, but with less Nazi punching."

Marceline gave him a little shove. "You can't fool me any more Simon. I've seen pictures of you before the war and you were a total nerd."

Simon leaned in toward her and said, in an excessively loud mock-whisper, "You know that and I know that, but these guys don't."

"You're about to tell them about how you were out on vacation antiquing. I think they're going to figure it out," Marceline "whispered" back.

"I think you may be right," Simon said, chuckling. "Drat."

"You're still so silly, Simon," Marceline said.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Simon agreed, sobering. He'd always been a bit ridiculous and that had never seemed like a bad thing before, but as the Ice King he'd been silly to the point of insanity almost all the time. He noticed Finn giving him a particularly odd look, and Simon wondered if Finn wasn't thinking along the same lines as he was.

A bit awkwardly, Simon cleared his throat and continued. "Like Marceline said, I was on vacation up in Northern Scandinavia, hoping to find a few pieces for my personal collection. One evening I went out to a little local restaurant for dinner and was sat down at a table next to a woman who was also eating alone."

"Was that Betty?" Finn asked.

"I'm telling the story," Simon chided. "So the waiter came to take my order and after he left the woman leaned over and said to me, 'you know, I think your accent may actually be worse than mine is.' It turns out she was a tourist too, from the same city that I was, no less, and her name was Betty Grof."

"I knew it was Betty," said Finn.

"You totally called it, bro," Jake said.

"Shut up you guys," Marceline snapped. Simon gave her a little comforting pat on the shoulder.

"After chatting for a few minutes from our separate tables, Betty asked if I wanted to join her for dinner. And who am I to say no to a pretty lady?" There was a longer version of the story from here, the one he used to tell Marceline when she started asking for more and more details, that covered some of the things he and Betty had talked about and the stories they had told each other. But over time he didn't remember the details of conversation itself so much as the things he had told Marceline about it, and now even those memories had begun to fade. Besides, while he wasn't quite in a rush yet, he didn't have unlimited time here either. So he summarized. "Betty and I talked for hours, or we must have because it seemed like the next thing I knew, our waiter was coming to tell us the restaurant had closed ten minutes ago and we were the only ones still there. We were staying at different hotels, but they weren't too far from each other or the restaurant, so I walked her back to hers before going back to my hotel and retiring for the night myself."

"You mean you went back to your hotel after you gave her a kiss goodnight, right?" Jake interjected with a wink.

"No, I just dropped her off," Simon said.

"What? Dude, you totally should have smooched her," said Jake.

"Believe me, I know," Simon said, chagrinned. He'd figured that much out himself about two minutes after he'd left that evening and had almost talked himself into turning back around to plant one on her right then and there, but that seemed a little too romantic comedy. "I decided to try to call her at her hotel the next morning instead, to see if she wanted to spend the day together. But when I went down to the front desk early the next morning to get the number for her hotel, it turned out Betty had already been there that morning. One of the things she had mentioned the previous evening is that she had published a book, and I had joked about it being too bad I didn't have a copy with me so I could get it signed by the author. Well that morning she had apparently come over and left at the front desk for me a signed copy of her book and inside of it she left a note for me. It was the funniest, smartest note I had ever read. I tried calling her right then and there, but she wasn't at her hotel. I thought I could try again later, and if nothing else we both lived in the same city and I could look her up after we got back home. I remember that it was an especially lovely day outside, and it seemed like a shame not to go out and enjoy it.

"So I went out and while I was exploring I ran into a dock worker who was trying to get rid of an antique crown."

Simon hadn't even realized he'd stopped talking until Marceline placed her head on his shoulder. "I love you, Simon."

Simon wrapped his arm around her and placed a kiss on top of her head. "I love you too, sweetie."

There was a weight on his other shoulder and, surprised, Simon turned to see Finn leaning on him. "I don't about that stuff that Marceline was talking about just now, but you are my friend. And all that stuff with the crown, that was some seriously whacked out stuff. So, you know, I'm here for you, man."

"Thank you," Simon said, touched. He lifted his other arm so he could scruff Finn on top of his hat before wrapping that one around the boy. Then there was a weight in his lap.

"I just didn't want to get left out," Jake said. "Also I was hoping someone would give me some ear scritches."

"No worries, buddy; I've got you covered," Finn said, reaching over to scratch behind Jake's ear.

This was an odd group of people he had here, Simon reflected. Odd, but good. If he had to die, then at least he could ascend to the 22nd Dead World in peace with the knowledge that he wasn't totally abandoning anyone; these guys would take care of each other.

"The story," Marceline prompted.

"Right, the story. After I had regained my senses enough to knock off the crown, I was so distracted trying to figure out what just happened that it drove thoughts of Betty right out of my head for a little bit. And even after I remembered I decided that I couldn't try to start anything with her until after I figured out what was going on with the crown." In retrospect, now that he knew the nature of the curse and was relatively certain how it could be broken, that decision had probably been a mistake. If he would have sought Betty out back then when he was still relatively sane then maybe… but no, that was putting too much on Betty, even just in his imagination. "More and more time passed and then the war happened and I realized I wasn't going to ever see her again. But I kept the book and the letter, to remind myself of better times. I'm fairly certain that I still have them around somewhere."

"And now Betty has made her way from one thousand years in the past to be here with you again? That is so romantic!" Jake squealed in delight.

"I'm fairly certain she doesn't actually know that I'm the same Simon she met that day. And I know she didn't come to the future just to find me," Simon said.

"Yeah, but even if she didn't know you were you before, you're back to being you now, so if you go see her now then she'll know," Finn said.

"Yeah Simon, what did you come out here for anyway?" Marceline asked.

"To see you, of course," Simon said tightening his arm around her in a sideways hug.

"Thanks. But now I think you need to go see Betty and let her know what happened," Marceline said, standing up and pulling Finn and Jake up off Simon as well. "We'll have plenty chance to catch up later."

"I really should head out," Simon acknowledged, standing up and brushing himself off. "One last hug for an old man before he has to go?"

"You're not that old," Marceline said fondly as she came into his open arms. If only she knew.

Simon held onto his little girl tightly. Well, not so little any more. She would miss him when he was gone, certainly, but she was all grown up and she didn't _need_ him now. She was strong enough to take care of herself, and made herself enough good friends that she wouldn't have to. "I am so, so proud of you, Marcy," Simon said softly. "And I love you so very much."

"Man, Simon, you don't have to get all mushy on me," Marceline said, taking a step back and flicking one discreet finger under her eye. "But, you know, me too, right?"

"I know, darling," Simon said. Then he turned to Finn and Jake. "I wanted to thank the both of you as well. I could have done without some of the bruises, but I appreciate you two helping to keep me under control would I was too out of my head to do it myself."

"No prob, SP," Finn said.

After that there was nothing and far too much left to say, so Simon settled on a simple goodbye and took his leave, pushing the carpet as fast as it would go to the Ice Kingdom. To Betty.

Initially he was planning to search for Betty just as soon as he arrived, but after he flew through the gaping maw of the mountain – already beginning to melt now without the magic of the crown to sustain it – he found himself pausing. He felt worse than he had when he first arrived at Marceline's place, but his body wasn't completely failing him at this point; he had time enough left to pass. And if he was going to say goodbye to Betty he wanted to do it as wholly himself. So instead he turned and went into his closet.

It took some effort to find it, buried at the very back underneath a pile of other junk, but the effort was well worth it. He hadn't even realized how out of place those robes were making him feel until he was out of them and back into his old suit again. His glasses didn't appear to be in here anywhere, but he supposed he could manage without them; his vision wasn't that bad.

Simon emerged from the closet to find Gunter standing next to the flying carpet and eyeing the crown still sitting atop it. "Wenk?" he said as he turned and caught sight of Simon.

"It's me. Although I'm afraid that I can't understand you anymore." If he had ever been able to understand him in the first place. Maybe that had been the persistent delusion.

"Wenk, wenk," Gunter said, picking up the crown and handing it to Simon.

"I'm sorry, but the magic's gone from it. You've been a good friend over the years. Well, mostly, I think. I'm sure Betty will take care of you after I'm gone," Simon said, patting Gunter on the head. "Speaking of, do you know where she is right now?"

"Wenkwenk, wenk," Gunter said, pointing his flipper down in the vague direction of the library.

"Thank you," Simon said, getting back on the carpet for the ride down there – he did not like the idea of trying to deal with all those stairs in his condition.

Simon might have missed her entirely, except out of the corner of his eye he noticed the entrance to the The Past Room, which he vaguely recalled that the Ice King had covered, was now wide open. Then when he looked in, he saw her, kneeling on the ground with her back to him. Betty.

Simon felt his breath catch in his throat. Despite Finn, Jake, and Marceline's reassurance, and his own memories of her that were becoming clearer with every passing minute, Simon hadn't truly believed that Betty was really here until just now. But of course she was real; even with a basis to go off of, how could Simon ever dream someone as amazing as her up?

He stepped down from his carpet, and the sound of his shoes hitting the ice floor seemed to echo loudly, enough to startle Betty so that she turned around and Simon could see, even with his vision still blurry, that she was crying. Simon crossed over to her in a few long strides. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Betty shook her head slowly, unable to take her eyes off of him. "I'm fine," she said. "Simon, is that you? Really the real you? Am I dreaming?"

Simon offered her his hand to help her up, smiling softly. He could certainly empathize with that feeling; he could hardly believe this was real himself, and he was the one living it. "You're not dreaming. It's really me, lo-" Simon bit down hard. That wasn't some light-hearted endearment, like calling Marcy darling or sweetie. It had weight and meaning, especially here, now, with Betty because, because…

Oh Glob. Simon was in love with her. Head over heels, over the moon, the whole nine yards, crazy, stupid in love with her. He had known he cared about her, had known she was something special and amazing, but he hadn't realized before just how much she meant to him. And it was a wonder that he hadn't. Even as Ice King and completely oblivious, he didn't know how he could have missed this feeling, or mistaken it for anything else.

Halfway there, a distant voice in the back of his mind noted, the tone dry and ironic since it hardly mattered any more. The first half was always going to be the easier one anyway.

Betty grabbed onto his hand, drawing Simon back to the present just in time for him to grip back and help her up. She gave her hand in his a sort of amazed look, then smiled up at him. "You really are real. Oh!" She pulled her hand away and reached into her jacket pocket. "I found these. I'm guessing you might need them now," she said, offering him his glasses.

"Thank you." He put the glasses on, and the world around him suddenly jumped into sharp focus, but Simon only had eyes for Betty. "You're beautiful."

Betty's smile grew. "Thanks. But I don't understand; how are you here and you again? Did you break the curse? That is what it was, a curse on your crown?"

"That's what it was," Simon confirmed. He looked down at the crown he was still carrying in his left hand, then forced himself to let go and drop it on the ground. He thought himself past the point of actually hating the crown, or maybe he just had too little time left to waste it on useless anger, but he didn't want to be clinging to it like a child with their favorite toy either. "And I didn't break the curse, or at least not exactly," he said, and then he explained to her about what had happened with Bella Noche.

"That's great, Simon. I'm happy for you," Betty said.

"I'm happy too," Simon said, his tone a bit wistful. This wasn't the life he would have picked for himself if he had had the chance, but if he had to choose between an eternity as the Ice King or death, then he would welcome death with open arms. All that remained was to find a way to say goodbye to Betty.

"I'm sorry I never called you," Simon said, gesturing to the letter Betty was still holding in her other hand. He recognized it immediately, of course. Back in the early days he had taken it out all the time just to look at and remind himself of a time when things had been hopeful and to give him something to try to work towards. Even now, when it had been a very, very long time since he was sane enough to understand what the letter meant, Ice King had still pulled it out from time to time, knowing it was important without knowing why.

"It's okay. I wouldn't have answered anyway," Betty said.

Oh. Simon felt a stab of pain and disappointment through his heart. He had thought… well a lot of silly romantic things with no basis in reality it seemed. It was probably his own fault, pinning so much on someone he'd only met one time. Though after having the chance to get to know her recently, Simon would be hard-pressed to disagree with any of those things he'd thought of her over the long years.

"Oh, no not like that! I really was hoping you would call me," Betty said, nervously tucking her hair behind her ear. "What I meant was I couldn't have answered the phone if you had called. I remembered how I ended up in Ooo. The day after we met when you put on the crown the first time – I think it was the first time – I was on the docks too. I saw you floating up in the air, screaming and throwing ice magic everywhere. I remember seeing some of it coming at me, too quickly to move away in time, and then nothing until Lady woke me up on the beach."

"You mean it's my fault?" Simon asked, his voice blank with shock.

"Please don't blame yourself; I don't blame you. You weren't in your right mind, and even then I know you didn't do it on purpose. Besides, I'm not upset about it anymore," Betty said.

"How could you not be upset after that? I'm sure I remember you crying." He remembered holding her while she sobbed, so hard she couldn't even stand, so hard that she actually turned to Ice King for comfort.

"Of course I cried; I woke up to find my whole world suddenly gone. But I would have lost them anyway in a few years during the Great Mushroom War, and I would have died too. I never understood why of all people I was the one saved, but I know why I'm here now, and I'm not upset anymore," she said, looking at him earnestly.

As Simon regarded Betty, the most beautiful woman inside and out he had ever met, just as he was finding her all over again, only so he could lose her all over again, he hoped that whatever higher power was behind this was enjoying its cosmic joke at Simon's expense; it seemed like his life should be worth at least that much. "Betty," Simon said, choking on the word. He swallowed and tried again. "Betty, I came here so I could tell you good-bye."

"You're leaving me?" Betty said, and her distress was palpable.

"Not by choice," Simon answered. Never by choice. "I'm _old_ ; I'm not going to live much longer." He could already feel the cold settling into his bones, and he was sure if he had a mirror, there would be more wrinkles in his face than there had been ten minutes ago.

"But that doesn't make sense! It's not at all consistent with how this type of curse should work," Betty objected, and she began pacing in agitation. "It's a full-body transformative curse, that much is abundantly apparent. It had some effects on your mind as well, but that's not really relevant to the matter at hand; it certainly wouldn't have altered things in this way. So it's a full-body transformative and I thought it was of the particular subset that preserved your body in its previous state underneath the curse. It would have to be, wouldn't it? If it weren't you would have dropped dead the instant the curse was taken off, not this delayed reaction you say you're experiencing. But if it is preserving your body's previous state, then when the curse broke then you should have gone back to exactly the condition you were in the second before the curse was set on you. Your one thousand years under the curse shouldn't have been any different than my one thousand years frozen in ice. If anything it should have been easier on your body, since I had to spend a week in the hospital recovering my strength, whereas you should have been able to go straight into continuing on as if nothing happened." Betty bit her lip and stared into the distance thoughtfully for a moment, before turning back to Simon so he could see the light of comprehension dawning in her eyes. "That would be when the curse broke, but the curse didn't break. You said it was forcibly ripped off of you by Bella Noche."

"That's right," Simon said. He'd figured all that out a while ago, though probably not quite as quickly as Betty had been able to put the pieces together. But to be fair to himself, Betty had been studying curses much more recently than he had.

"I know! I'll fix the crown, then after the curse gets reactivated, I'll figure out how to break it and fix you," Betty said.

"What, no! It's my time. I don't want to be the Ice King again; it's like living with eternal diaper butt. I can't do it," said Simon.

"Not forever," Betty insisted. "But if I go destroy Bella Noche and reactivate your curse, that'll buy me time until I can break it and save you."

"You can't break the curse. It's impossible."

"It can't be impossible. A curse can't exist without a way to be broken. Even if whatever original method you were supposed to use is impossible now, the curse would have had to incorporate some new loophole that was metaphorically similar enough to work or it would have automatically broken," Betty said.

"Yes I know, but in this case the difference between impossible and improbable is so narrow it's basically academic. To break the curse you –"

"No wait," Betty said. "Marceline told me that if I know how to break the curse, then I won't be able to do it anymore. Is that true?"

"I don't know about can't, but it would certainly complicate matters," Simon said. The idea of Betty falling in love with the Ice King was ludicrous enough; how would that ever happen if she had it hanging over her head that if she didn't then she would be condemning Simon to an eternity of being him?

"Then don't tell me. I'll figure it out for myself and then break your curse. And until then I'll be right here with you, making being the Ice King as un-diaper butt-y as I can," Betty said earnestly.

Simon allowed himself just a brief moment to imagine that. It almost might be worth going back to being the Ice King then. But he couldn't do that to her. "I'm not going to force you to stay here. I'm releasing you from any promises you made, and you aren't my prisoner anymore. I'm sorry you ever were in the first place."

Betty laughed at him, actually laughed, her eyes crinkled with amused delight. "You think that's why I stayed here, because I promised not to run away in exchange for you letting me out of that stupid cell? I only made that promise in the first place because I wanted to stay here; if I had ever really wanted to leave I would have, promise or no. I admit in the beginning I mostly only wanted to stay because the Ice Kingdom was a slightly preferable alternative to the Candy Kingdom, but now I'm here because this is where you are. And where would I go without you?"

The way she said that, and the way she was looking at him just now, Simon could almost believe – no. If he had been himself then maybe he would have stood a chance with someone like Betty, but that opportunity was just one more thing that had been robbed from him, from both of them, the moment he'd put on that cursed crown. The Ice King was just someone that Betty had, against all odds and semblance of common sense, come to consider a close and dear friend. That was all.

He knew that, and yet what was he supposed to do, how was he supposed to respond to the look in her eyes just now? "I…"

Betty must have been able to tell his resolve was weakening, because she beseeched him one last time. "I can do it; you've got to believe me Simon."

Simon closed his eyes for a long moment, taking in and expelling a deep breath. Then he opened them again and looked Betty in the eyes. "Okay." Because he'd rather die than go back to being the Ice King, but he thought he'd rather be the Ice King again than let Betty down. "So what's your plan for defeating Bella Noche?"

Betty's expression, which had brightened when Simon had agreed to her wild gambit, took on a determined cast. "Bella Noche's primary, and I'm pretty sure only offensive capability is its ability to steal magic from the people and objects around it. I don't have any magic powers to speak of, so I should be able to get inside its anti-magic field and find my way to where it is without any real problems."

"Makes sense," Simon agreed. "Then what?"

"Well like I said, Bella Noche doesn't really have any other offensive capabilities. So I figured I'd just punch it until it gave up."

"You're going to what? Are you crazy?" Simon demanded.

He made an aborted motion in her direction, as though he was going to reach out and stop her, but Betty's earlier pacing had brought her to the other side of the room near the flying carpet just inside the doorway, and with two bounding steps she was standing on top of it. Rather than immediately take off, Betty turned back around and favored him with a mischievous smile. "A touch insane with a hidden adventurer's spirit, actually." Then she paused, her expression taking on a thoughtful cast as she said, more to herself than anything, "And with the spark of a brilliant mind."

"What is that supposed to mean-"

She kissed him. Betty got down off the carpet, crossed the room in a few long strides, grabbed his face, pulled him in close, and then quickly, but with a full measure of intent and conviction, pressed their lips together before pulling back and searching his face. Well, if she was looking for signs of disapproval, she wouldn't find them.

"Such a brilliant mind," Simon assured her. He placed his hands on her hips and drew her in closer. Betty came willingly, moving her arms so they were hanging over his shoulders, one hand making its way up to play idly with the hair at the nape of his neck. "You're so brilliant and insightful and kind and strong and absolutely gorgeous and funny and sweet –"

"You're the sweet one," Betty countered and she kissed him again. No quick press of lips this time, instead Betty seemed determined to explore every inch of his mouth, and Simon was quite content to let her. More than that, this time Simon got to kiss her back, and he tried to pour every ounce of devotion and affection and infatuation and just pure love that he felt for her into it. He wanted to take every bit of joy she'd given him and pay it back tenfold, though he wasn't sure a person could even fit that much happiness inside of them.

When Betty finally pulled away this time, she didn't go far, merely resting her head against his shoulder as he held her close. It was an urgent situation they were in if Betty really did want to try and face Bella Noche and punch it until it went down before Simon died – he still didn't care much for that plan, but he couldn't come up with anything better and he was getting weaker by the minute so if he tried to go with her to help he'd only end up getting in her way. But despite the urgency they had seemed to come to a mutual unspoken agreement to allow themselves at least this one moment.

"I really regretted not doing that on that first night," Betty said.

" _You_ regretted it? I've been regretting not kissing you for a thousand years. You are the most…" Simon began, but trailed off as words adequate to describe Betty failed him.

Betty giggled. "You're the most too, Simon."

It was like the floor had dropped out beneath him and his heart had fallen down somewhere into his stomach. "You don't even know me," he said, gripping onto Betty a little tighter, instinctively afraid of his own hollow sounding words and the potential they had to drive her away.

Betty lifted her head up and looked him in the eye. "What are you talking about, of course I know you. How long have we been living together now?"

"That wasn't me, not really. That was the Ice King," Simon said.

"But the Ice King is a part of you, Simon," Betty said, the words which held what was perhaps one his greatest fears passing easily from her lips without a hint of revulsion. "Or maybe you're a part of him, I don't know. All I know is that when I first met you as the Ice King I thought you were a childish, obnoxious jerk. But as I spent more time with you I started to see past all that craziness to the person underneath. Someone who was fun and funny and smart and sweet and caring. And I admit I wasn't sure before how much of that was real and how much of that was just a product of the curse you were under. But I know now that amazing person I saw was you, Simon. And every time I look at the Ice King, you're the one I see, and you're the one I… I wanted to kiss at least once before we had to start trying to negotiate around the nose. Well, twice."

"Three times," Simon corrected and this time he kissed her. He'd meant it to be a continuation of the sharing and joy from before, but now there was a sharp edge of desperation to it. While Simon had always had faith in Betty – how could he not? – it was only now that she had kissed and given Simon some idea what the shape of her feelings for him were and what they might yet be that he was able to hope again, hope for something better than an endless eternity as a crazy old man. But clinging in the shadow of that hope, fear slowly started to creep in. Because with something to hope for, Simon now had something to lose and he couldn't…

Betty pressed up closer against him, returning his desperation with a hunger of her own, like she needed him as badly as he needed her. He was even starting to believe that maybe she did.

So it was with a great deal of effort that Simon managed to push Betty away and it took even more effort not to pull her in all over again at the sight of her, not quite breathing hard like he was, but certainly less than composed. It seemed to him at that moment there was nothing he wanted more than to see Betty looking just like this and more so again in the future. And he _would_ ; no other possible outcome was acceptable to him anymore.

"You better go. I don't know how much time I have left," Simon said.

"Right," Betty agreed. She darted back over to the flying carpet again, then turned back to look at him and said. "Just wait here for me. I'll be right back."

Simon smiled and echoed her earlier words back to her. "Where would I go without you?"

"Now you're getting it. Okay carpet, take me to Bella Noche," Betty commanded. A moment later the carpet had taken her out of the doorway and down the hall, but even as she disappeared from sight, he could hear her calling back to him. "And you better ask me again when I get back!"

It took Simon a minute to put together what she was telling him to ask her, but when he did he couldn't help the broad smile that made its way across his face. Still smiling, he turned to the being that had quietly appeared in the corner a few moments earlier and said, "It looks like I won't be needing your services just quite yet after all."

Death didn't appear to be particularly impressed by Simon's pronouncement, though it was a little hard to read expressions off of a skull. "Get real man." Definitely not impressed then. "You know how long it took the last guy to break the curse? Seventy-two years. You've been the Ice King for over a thousand and at that rate you're still going to be the Ice King until the sun blows up. This could be your one chance."

"Seventy-two? I thought it was ten years they had been rusting," Simon quipped, but Death continued to look unimpressed. Ah well, Betty would have laughed. "I would say that based on what happened just now my chances of breaking the curse are actually pretty good. Besides, Betty says she's going to do it, and I believe in her."

"Eh, fair enough. See you in a few," Death said, and then he vanished.

"That's some confidence," Simon scoffed. Then he immediately dissolved into a hacking coughing fit. So admittedly, it was reasonably justified confidence. Oh breadsticks, he needed to sit down.

Simon knocked the debris off the wooden crate in the corner and sat down heavily. He was starting to deteriorate quickly; he didn't know if he'd be able to get up again, not until after… Well, best make some use of the time he had left. Simon bent forward and grabbed a handful of the scattered papers on the floor – he wasn't sure if it was Betty who had made the mess when she was looking through here earlier or not, though he did have a vague recollection of knocking the desk over himself at one point, so it may have been that – and began sorting through them. He managed to keep that up for a little while, but eventually his hands started to tremble and shake as he tried to hold the pages, and the words blurred together until they were indistinguishable. He leaned forward and rested on his arms. He just needed a few moments to catch his breath.

"So I was wondering Simon. You said you believe in Betty, but what about yourself?" Simon wanted to ask Death what in the world he was talking about, but it was all Simon could do to lift up his head to look at the being. He could almost imagine that Death was sporting a Cheshire Cat grin on that skull of his. But that was silly; Simon's eyes were old, they were probably just playing tricks on him. "Good luck," Death said as the world started to dim and fade away around him. "I'll be seeing you around, hopefully."

Ice King woke up feeling all woozy and discombobulated. Man, that must have been some party he'd been to. He had been to a party, right? Yeah, right, with his bros from Wizard City. He'd gone to hang out with them this morning because he had been upset about… something. He couldn't quite remember…

Oh! He knew what would cheer him up: if he went out and got a princess to marry. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd done that. But you know how it goes, you get busy doing other things and all the sudden it's been months and months since you thought about your crushing loneliness. Of course, that had never happened before, but first time for everything!

Ice King stood up and then realized he was wearing a super nerdy outfit like from back when he used to be a total nerd. "Very funny prank, you guys," he muttered to himself. So go upstairs, change into some cool threads, then go out and capture a princess. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan. He wondered what Princess Muscles had been up to lately.

He started to go, but then paused for a minute in the doorway. Wasn't there someone who had wanted Simon to wait here for her, someone like… huh. Weird. He couldn't… Well, whatever. Off to get himself a super fine princess.

* * *

Beta's by PrairieDawn


	10. Wherein a Curse is Broken

Wizards were jerks.

That wasn't entirely fair. Life Giving Magus had seemed like a perfectly pleasant individual, if a bit odd, on the one occasion that Betty had met him prior. And she supposed that so long as he was under his curse Simon was a wizard too and he… was a jerk some of the time when he was Ice King. Still, the point was that not all wizards were jerks, just the ones she had been dealing with today and presumably even they weren't jerks all the time.

Honestly though, Betty had risked her life saving their magic and their city from Bella Noche. Yet after that she had apparently been left lying unconscious on the cold hard ground for half a day before any of them had thought to come look for her. And then once they had found her, they had unceremoniously kicked her out because Wizard City was for "wizards only, fool." Granted, Betty hadn't fought Bella Noche because she was concerned about Wizard City; she'd fought it in order to save Simon, but they didn't know that. And even if they had figured it out, Betty's motives for her actions wouldn't have meant she'd saved them or risked herself in doing so any less. Sure, they had given her a pretty nice wizard's cloak before they kicked her out and they had restrained themselves to just kicking her out instead of turning her into a wizard's staff which was apparently the usual punishment for trespassing, so Betty supposed that was something at least. But still, giving her free access to the city – which, once again, would no longer exist if not for her – despite her status as a non-magic user seemed like the least the Grand Master Wizard could do.

Not that she was all that interested in hanging around right now anyway. It would have been helpful for her research to be able to come back again later, not to mention it might have been nice to just look around, but right now she had to go check on Simon. His condition hadn't seemed to have progressed too far by the time Betty had left, despite the presence of some prominent wrinkles that he definitely hadn't had in his picture, and Betty didn't think she had taken that long to get to Wizard City and defeat Bella Noche, but she wouldn't be able to rest easy until she saw that Simon was okay. That was, as okay as he could be under the circumstances.

For the moment she was trying to keep herself from being too worried about the fact that he hadn't come looking for her after his curse had presumably been restored. That he hadn't didn't mean that he couldn't, it only meant that he hadn't. And as much as Betty might hope otherwise, she had reason to assume that Simon wouldn't remember any of what had happened during his temporary respite, which would mean that he didn't know that Betty had been off on a dangerous and admittedly somewhat reckless mission to save him. And since he didn't know that, Betty really hadn't been gone long enough at this point for there to be any cause for alarm. In fact, if Simon had gotten busy doing his own thing he might have chalked her absence up to her being holed up in the library or her room and still be unaware that she was gone. She was sure it was fine.

But what if it wasn't? The Simon in the picture and the one she had known for that one night had been about the same age as her, but the Simon she had left waiting had looked to be at least a decade her senior, probably closer to two. Which wasn't that old really, but she didn't know how long it had been between when the curse had been removed and he first started aging and when she had first seen him. And even if she had known that, she didn't know if he had been aging at a steady rate or if his aging would progress all the way through a standard lifespan before he…

No, Simon couldn't be dead. He couldn't die, not when they had just found each other again, not when Betty had finally realized how much he meant to her, how much she needed him. He couldn't leave her like that. Please don't, Simon.

Finally, finally Betty reached the Ice Kingdom and there she ended up having to pause to collect herself after the surge of relief that went through her. Because from here she could see through the open doorway to Simon sitting on a stool turned away from her and back to his old self, for a rather literal definition of the term, again. Safe and healthy and most importantly, more importantly than anything else in the world, alive. She had done it, she had saved him. Now she just had to do it all over again.

It wasn't until after Betty had assured herself of Simon's continued well-being that she noticed the other person in the room with him. There, on the other side of Simon, stood Muscle Princess, completely encased in ice. Oh Grob, what fresh Hell was this?

Betty hadn't expected Simon's behavior to change just because she was seeing things more clearly, or perhaps was merely more certain of her conviction in the things she was seeing. Ultimately her new understanding of the situation didn't have any real bearing on Simon's state of mind, so even if she felt like everything was different now, she was practical enough to know that it was only different for her, not for Simon. But even without that, Betty had thought they were past this. Simon hadn't kidnapped any princesses or done anything of that sort since the day she had come to stay with him, so why was he starting again now?

"Your girlfriend is going to be so mad when she gets back," Muscle Princess threatened as she strained against the ice around her.

"Girlfriend? Is that what you're freaking out about, baby? Well not to worry because this Ice King is one hundred percent available."

She would set aside for a moment the fact that Simon was, arguably, technically right about being available – a lot of things had been implied earlier, not the least of which being Betty rescinding her request that Simon not ask her to marry him, but nothing had been explicitly stated, so arguably, technically, he was right. However, he had never let the fact that they weren't dating stop him from acting like they were before, so obviously there was some other reason he said what he had. If she was right in her suspicion that he didn't remember anything from the interlude when he wasn't cursed, then that would mean the last interaction that he did remember them having was their fight last night – had that really only happened just last night? – when she had been quite adamant in her desire for him to stop asking her to marry him. Probably Simon had come to the conclusion that that fight was them "breaking up" and that's why he had gone out and kidnapped Princess Muscles. All Betty had to do then was correct that mistaken impression – it would be pretty impossible for them to have broken up before they had even gotten together in the first place, if they could even be officially considered together at this point – and then they could move forward with trying to make this thing between them work. Somehow. They would figure it out.

"Wenk?" Gunter had made his way over to the entryway and was peering out at her curiously.

"Yeah, I'm coming in," Betty said, urging the rug the last few feet and then landing it.

"Wenk," Gunter repeated, patting Betty on the leg with his flipper. She didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but she didn't care for the vague comforting air of it. Gunter wasn't, as a general rule, particularly given to comforting and she didn't like to speculate on what it might mean if he was being that way now.

"Gunter, is someone at the door?" Simon asked, getting up and turning around. "Oh, a visitor! Look honey, we have a visitor."

"Visitor? I live here," Betty protested. He couldn't have possibly thought that she had moved out just because of their fight yesterday, could he? It wasn't as though they hadn't fought before. Maybe he just didn't recognize her with her hood up; that would be pretty Simon, actually. "It's me," she said, pulling it off.

"Oh, now you're going to get it," Muscle Princess said. Betty shot her a dirty look. She wasn't mad at Simon and she could certainly do without the color commentary.

"Well, hello beautiful lady, thanks for dropping by. I'm the Ice King, and this is my humble abode," Simon said, adopting his "charming" tone.

"Yes I know that. _I live here_. Simon, it's me," Betty said. A sinking feeling began to develop in her gut.

"Me who?"

"Me Betty."

"Sorry, have we met? It's just I date a lot of women. I guess you do look a little familiar, but… nope, I got nothing."

Okay, so Betty had figured out why Gunter had felt the need to be comforting, then. Simon hadn't just forgotten what he had done while he wasn't suffering from his curse, he had also forgotten… everything. He had forgotten everything.

It was funny, possibly even ironic, in a way. The curse being broken and recast was what had re-scrambled his brains and made him forget – it must have been that since logically, at least as much as any of Simon's madness adhered to logic, it hadn't been nearly long enough for Simon to have forgotten her this completely. Even if she didn't count the time they were together earlier today, it had been less than 24 hours since they had seen each other last. They had been apart that long before without any significant adverse effects on his memory. They had been apart that long before, hadn't they? They must have been, even if she couldn't specifically remember when. Well either way, it was the earlier situation that had brought about that which yesterday – really? Only just yesterday? – had been one of her deepest fears with regards to their relationship. And yet it was the very same situation that had made it so she wasn't really worried about it anymore. He'd kept the letter she'd written him for over a thousand years and so she knew now that no matter what he forgot, it didn't make her any less important to him. She knew what they were, and that was enough.

"You're sure you don't remember anything? I've been living here with you for the greater part of a year, and we've had dinner together literally every single night of that time. Not to mention all the other things we've done together." That being said, just because she wasn't worried about it and found what she had to be enough, that didn't mean she was _pleased_ with it or wouldn't have preferred the alternative where he did remember the time they had spent together. Of course what she would have really preferred was for him to be free of the curse and his insanity altogether, but that was something she was still working on.

There must have been some shades of distress coloring her tone when she spoke because Simon's response was soft and placating. "Hey, it's okay. Sometimes I remember things that didn't really happen too."

"No, Betty's right; she's been living here for a while," Muscle Princess said. "She's the girlfriend I was talking about."

"Wenk!" Gunter added.

"Arguably, technically we aren't dating," Betty pointed out.

"What? Lumpy Space Princess told me you were. If I had known that I never would have let my guard down enough for Ice King to capture me."

"She was misinformed. If we are dating, it's only as of this morning," Betty told her.

"Wait, we're dating?" Simon asked breathlessly.

"Yes," Betty responded decisively and Simon squealed in delight. "Officially, as of right now, we are dating." And that was one problem solved. Granted of all the problems before her at the moment, that one was so easily dealt with it hardly ranked the status of problem in the first place, but at least it was something she could check off her list. "Now let's see if we can't get you to remember some of the things leading up to us officially dating. I mean, it took you three days, but did eventually remember what penguin sledding was, so I'm sure at least some of this will come back to you." She didn't have any particular hopes of him remembering anything specific from either of the times they had met while he wasn't cursed, but she figured there was a better than average chance of him remembering the majority of the rest at some point.

"And in the meanwhile we can make new memories, princess," Simon said.

"That we can. And I'm not a princess." The latter words were said absently with no real heat to them. If anything, they only came out out of habit, as Betty had already looked away from Simon and was trying to remember where she had stowed that small sledgehammer she used for breaking up larger chunks of ice; setting Princess Muscles free could be the first new memory they made together.

"That's right, you're not a princess, you're Betty. You told me that before. Right?" Simon said.

Betty turned back to give him a reassuring smile. "I did. I've told you that a lot, actually. Do you remember anything else?"

Simon's face twisted into a thoughtful moue that was both comical and oddly endearing. "Oh! There was something I was supposed to ask you."

"Don't worry about that; I wasn't expecting these circumstances when I said it. You can ask when you're ready, when you want to." And given how very many times he'd asked before, Betty had no doubt he would again in the future.

"What? Why wouldn't I want to marry you?" Simon objected.

"Why would you?" Betty countered, though there was a genuine question in it as well. "We aren't going to get married just because you're lonely. You don't have to be lonely anymore anyways, because I'm going to be here with you no matter what." That had been her plan for a long time, even before she had learned who he really was. Even before she had realized that she was planning it, whenever she had considered the future she had never seen herself anywhere but here. The back of her mind knew what she wanted better than she did. Or maybe it was her heart.

"I already told you why I want to marry you. Because you're my princess," Simon said. To that there was nothing Betty could do but close her eyes and laugh, just a little bit. "What, did I say something funny?"

"No, it's just me." Because it wasn't just seeing she was doing more clearly now, she was hearing him better too. And she understood that when he called her "my princess" it had nothing to do with princesses and everything to do with her. Posed with the same question, she doubted she could come up with a better answer herself. "Alright, in that case let me ask you something. Simon Petrikov, will you marry me?"

Simon gasped, his hands flying up to cover his mouth. "Oh my goodness. I don't know what to say."

"Wenk."

"Well of course I'm going to say yes. Now shut up, Gunter; you're ruining the moment!" Simon chided and Betty just laughed again.

She held her arms open and Simon rushed in to hold her. It wasn't exactly the same as before and it wasn't everything that she wanted, but it was enough. "I love you, Simon."

"I love you too, Betty."

As soon as he said the words Simon began to change. It was so subtle Betty thought at first that she might have missed the way his spine pulled just a little straighter and his shoulder grew just a bit broader and his skinny frame got just a bit thicker if she hadn't been holding on to him so tightly. Of course, once she pulled back some to see, she realized there was no possible way she could have missed this change.

Simon, the real and true and one hundred percent himself Simon, smiled at her. "I guess we didn't have to figure out how to work around the nose after all."

There was really no way to respond to that except by kissing him. Soundly, but quickly because Betty still had questions she needed answered. Or one question at least. "But how did I break the curse? Was it by agreeing to marry you, because if someone had just told me…"

"No, love. It's far simpler and more complicated than that," Simon said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "The curse was broken because we fell in love."

"That is so beautiful!" Muscle Princess exclaimed, startling Betty. She had forgotten the princess was here.

"Oh sorry," Betty said, starting to pull away from Simon so she could see about setting Muscle Princess free as Simon did the same.

But the princess shook her head at them. "No, it's fine. You two just keep doing what you're doing and I'll see myself out." She flexed her muscles and suddenly one arm burst free, then the rest of her – which begged the question of why she hadn't done that sooner. She tossed them a pair of thumbs up then immediately pulled out her cell phone and began talking on it on her way out. "Oh my Glob, Lumpy Space Princess. I hope you're ready to call everyone, because you will never believe what I just saw." So much for keeping their personal lives private – the princesses of Ooo were as gossipy as a bunch of teenage girls. Though, come to think of it, that was what most of them were. Oh well then.

"So falling in love was really the key to breaking the curse?" Betty asked Simon. "I'd seen a few references to that being a way to break spells in my research, but they all indicated that it was a fairly archaic method. Not to mention it seemed incredibly cheesy and fairy tale."

"The crown itself is very old," Simon reminded her. "As best as I can tell it's the centerpiece of a very obscure Nordic version of the Beauty and the Beast."

Betty leaned forward and landed her forehead against Simon's shoulder with a thunk. "Betty? You okay?" he asked.

"Just excuse me while I feel like an idiot for a minute," she responded.

Simon chuckled and stroked her hair. "Don't feel like an idiot; you're one of the smartest people I know. Everything seems more obvious in retrospect."

"But it should have been really obvious. You even had those books of fairy tales in the library. I thought you just liked fairy tales; I thought it was sweet," Betty said.

"Well, yes I did have the books down there for research purposes, but I do enjoy them, fairy tales, folk tales, myths, legends, and all those types of things. It's fascinating the things you can learn about a culture by knowing the stories they tell," Simon said. Betty could hear the passion and excitement in his voice as he said that, and her lips couldn't help but to curl up and smile in response.

"I suppose Marceline was right anyway; it's just as well I didn't figure out how to break the curse." Falling in love with Simon, and accepting that she really did love him, had been a difficult enough journey as it was. She couldn't imagine trying to do that while having it hanging over her head that if she didn't fall in love with him, then she was dooming him to an eternity of being cursed. Not exactly romantic.

"Marceline is a smart girl," Simon said fondly. "Which reminds me, I should call her and let her know what just happened."

"I'm pretty sure she's already heard about it from LSP or one of the other princesses by now. I give us an hour at the most before we're mobbed by a crowd of well-wishers."

"Good, we can enlist all of them to help us move. Without the power of the Ice King sustaining it, all this ice is going to start melting soon. And good riddance. There are a lot of bad memories in these walls," Simon said.

"A lot of good memories too," Betty pointed out. Mostly good memories for her, but Simon had wandered these empty halls for a lot longer than Betty had, and she could certainly see how for him the bad might weigh more heavily than the good. Although… Betty wrapped her arms around Simon's neck and pressed up close against him. "In fact, we do have a little time before anyone shows up. Why don't we take advantage of that and make one last good memory together?"

Simon placed his hands on her hips and smiled at her. "That sounds like an excellent idea. Lead the way princess."

Betty laughed and smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "I am not a princess."

* * *

Beta'd by Prairiedawn


	11. Epilogue

Betty and Simon decided against eloping because as much as they didn't want Lumpy Space Princess finding out about the wedding and crashing, there were still some people that they wanted to be able to share it with. There was no way they could get married without Marceline in attendance, and Princess Bubblegum had been such a good friend to Betty – she was even letting them stay in her castle until Marceline could track down the person that had built her little house to build one for the two of them – that Betty wanted to be sure she was there too. But it still was to be a small wedding, so the only people who knew when and where the wedding was taking place, or that there were concrete plans for it at all, were Betty and Simon themselves, their eight confirmed guests - nine if you counted Air, BMO's plus one – and Flame Princess, who had been invited by Finn, with permission from Betty and Simon, and who had politely but firmly declined.

Finn had taken the rejection rather hard, and Betty used the opportunity to remind him that happiness would come when and how it would, and it could sometimes could take a person completely by surprise. Certainly Betty's happiness had taken her by surprise, and Simon still seemed to be in a state of total astonishment half the time. Unfortunately, Betty's reassurance cheered Finn up about as much as Betty could have really reasonably expected it to cheer up a teenage boy, so she gave him a kiss on the cheek and asked if he would be willing to give her away. And that actually did perk him up a bit.

Princess Bubblegum was officiating, something she insisted she wanted to do even when offered the position of maid of honor instead. Lady Rainicorn then was asked to be the maid of honor while Marceline was of course the best "man." BMO was asked to be their photographer and Jake to play his viola, which meant that Shelby had to be invited too, as it seemed a little rude to bring his house to the wedding and not invite him. Then finally there was Gunter, who was just as attached to Simon as he had ever been to the Ice King, serving as the flower girl. Though that was a role he had apparently taken upon himself, as neither Betty nor Simon remembered asking him to do it.

The ceremony was held out in the grasslands on a warm summer day and it was lovely and short and there were no party-crashers wearing wedding dresses or near-misses with zeppelins. A dragon did attack them, but that was after the ceremony had ended and Finn and Jake were able to dispatch the beast quickly, and in Ooo that was probably the best that could be reasonably hoped for.

A small wedding was ideal and just what they wanted, but Betty was still partial to having a large reception, even if for once the reception wasn't even remotely her favorite part of the event. Bonnie, who really was a remarkable wedding planner, had solved the issue by inviting half of Ooo, or so it seemed from the guest list, to a party in honor of Betty and Simon, though none of the guests were told what they were honoring Betty and Simon for beforehand. The general consensus that seemed to be that it was an engagement party or possibly a wedding shower.

The wedding party arrived back at the Candy Kingdom about an hour after the party had officially started – Bubblegum was insistent that Betty and Simon make a grand entrance. Peppermint Butler was pacing anxiously outside the main entryway, and so he was the first to see them. His eyes went just a bit wide for a moment before he shook it off and regained a professional air. He was apparently of the same mind as the princess on grand entrances because he threw the double doors to the ballroom open wide, somehow making the action a thunderously loud one, then cleared his throat importantly and announced, "May I present our guests of honor, Mrs. Betty and Mr. Simon Petrikov."

A long moment of silence descended as everyone stared gaped-mouthed at Betty and Simon, still in their wedding finery. Then LSP, because of course it would be LSP, shrieked "Oh my Glob! They got married!" and suddenly everyone was rushing up to them.

Princess Bubblegum and Marceline shared a look and then glided into effortless teamwork, Bonnie directing everyone into a single file line and Marceline keeping everyone moving along. Even with that it seemed like forever they were standing up there accepting well-wishes, including from a large number of people that Betty was certain she'd never met before. Even Flame Princess and a small contingent from the Flame Kingdom – including Cinnamon Bun, Flambo, and some of Flame Princess' less evil relatives – had made it. With all the fuss and pomp and circumstance Betty got the feeling that people were treating this like it was a royal wedding, for all that Simon wasn't the Ice King anymore. She had wanted a large reception, but this was a bit much, if she was being honest. But then every time she felt like she was starting to flag, Simon would be right there, with a touch on her shoulder or an arm around her waist or a hand clasping her own. And Betty thought that maybe she really could do this forever as long as Simon kept being right there with her.

Finally there was the sound of someone tapping on a microphone. Jake had been up on the stage softly playing music on his viola since they arrived, but now he stopped and everyone turned their attention to Finn on the mic. "Alright y'all, it's time for the bride and groom to have their first dance. So Marcy get up here and gets to playing. Simon and Betty, get yo' buns out on the dance floor," Finn said, accompanying his words with expansive pointing gestures.

Simon offered her his arm in a slightly exaggerated gallant fashion, and, catching his mood, Betty lightly rested her hand on it. The crowd parted for them as they made their way across the dance floor to the now open circle of space, all of which only added to the storybook feel. When they reached the center of the floor, they both turned to each other, and then Simon gently guided her hands into position.

"Are we dancing a waltz?" Betty asked.

"Of course not. You can't dance a waltz to a song in four-four time," Simon answered with a hint a teasing to his voice. Betty still didn't know what four-four time was, or what sort of time one would dance a waltz to, but that was a bit beside the point at the moment, since Betty didn't know what song they were going to be dancing to in the first place. Simon had asked if he could arrange it himself, as he wanted it to be a surprise, and Betty was intrigued enough, and trusted him well enough, to agree to it.

Once they were in position, Simon gave Marceline a quick nod, and the music started. Even from just the first few notes, Betty knew she had heard the song before, but it wasn't until Jake's viola came in with its soaring highs that she fully recognized it. "You didn't," Betty said, fighting a grin.

"Well, you said that A Whole New World-ing you wasn't working, so I thought I try something else. Besides, this just seemed appropriate," Simon replied.

" _Tale as old as time,"_ Marceline crooned into the microphone.

"Though I think you may have been right about me not being as good as Alan Menken. Marceline definitely wasn't buying that I wrote this myself," Simon said conspiratorially.

That was it for Betty. She pressed her face to Simon's shoulder to try and suppress her giggles, but there was nothing that could hide the way her shoulders shook slightly with laughter.

"Nuh-uh Ice King," she heard Lumpy Space Princess call out from the crowd. "Did you just make your wife cry?"

"Tears of joy," Simon said.

"Why, how romantic!" said someone else, Mr. Cupcake she thought. That only made Betty laugh harder. It wasn't even all that funny, really, but Betty was just so completely filled with happiness that it was all bubbling up of its own accord, and she thought she might float away if she didn't let it out. So she pressed herself against her husband – husband! – and let the laughter spill out of her, and all the while Simon kept them dancing and Marceline kept singing away.

" _Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong."_

Eventually Betty was able to mostly regain control of herself, though even now she wasn't able to completely suppress the mirthful twitching of her lips as she tried to regard Simon with a mock-stern expression. "You are a ridiculous man, Simon Petrikov. I don't know why I married you."

"That's funny," Simon said. He spun her out and then back again, bringing her in to hold closely. "Because I know exactly why I married you, Betty Petrikov."

" _Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast."_

Then, a little to shut him up, a little because the way Simon had called her Betty Petrikov gave her the best kind of shivers, a little because of how good he looked in his wedding tux made it hard not to, a little because it had been an hour since she'd done it last, which meant they were way overdue, a little because of the way he was looking at her just now with pure and unabashed love pouring from his eyes and etched in every line of his expression, but mostly just because she could, Betty kissed him.

And they lived happily ever after. But that's a different story.


End file.
